Travelling down to Weston Super-Mare on Friday for my mates wedding on Saturday was an eye opener. I have made the journey to nearby Bristol on very many occasions and the trip down South once or twice a week for over twenty years.
Congrats to Alan and Rosa
I reckoned 5 hours tops because of the Gatsos and camera vans should keep my license clean for another trip. Just to give myself a couple of hours spare I decide to leave at 11am to get me in for 6pm. I decided to leave at 10:30am so off I went wondering what I would do to kill 2 or 3 hours at the other end. I arrived at 7pm. Oh boy was I lucky – could easily have been 10 or 11pm.
Friday morning southbound should not be too busy. Later, northbound can get very busy as the London and South commuters return back up north. I was such a commercial migrant myself for more than 20 years.
So what was the problem this fine day. Two things. From Preston all the way down the M6 and M5 it was contraflow after contraflow after contraflow. I didn’t see anyone working – you never do – but miles and tens of miles are cone’d off.
So what. The motorway looks pretty good – a lot better than most in Scotland. So what are they doing. Well, they are using up massive budgets – because you dare not leave anything in the pot. They are widening and improving the motorways. They are carrying out routing maintenance.
In a few simple words – THEY ARE SPENDING MONEY – VAST AMOUNTS OF MONEY BECAUSE THEY HAVE IT TO SPEND.
Of course, in spending all this money they are keeping lots of people in work, lots of companies in profit and lots of very happy shareholders.
When it comes to spending money on the motorways in England there is almost a bottomless pit. I don’t know how many miles of English motorway miles are under development or repair at any given times but it will be many hundreds and over the course of a year it will be tens of thousands.
THE LAST HUNDRED MILES OF ROADWAY TO ABERDEEN,THE UK OIL CAPITAL IS AN ‘A’ ROAD – THERE IS NO MOTORWAY NOR ANY PLANNED OR BUDGETED!
Where is England getting all this money from to plough into their vast array of motorways. The money seems to flow in. Is it sort of black and slippy stuff and Scotland finds it coming out of holes we dig off our coastline.
Travelling down, I was not stopped for more than about 5 minutes – but I must have stopped about a thousand times. At one stage in the Midlands it took about 3 hours to do 10 miles. The main problem is volume. The vast volume of people southward from Preston all the way to the Channel. People going about their business, back and forwards to work, on holiday, etc, etc. We are, after all, in the second highest densely populated places on earth. We are also in one of the richest places on earth and, by God it is very, very obvious.
But I am wrong about one thing. Did I say one of the richest. Apologies, as I was travelling down the M74 south towards the English border I saw NO ROADWORKS, hardly any cars and certainly no congestion. They were no overt sign signs of wealth and some parts of the motorway could do with some upgrading. Clearly, there is no money for that sort of thing But here’s the thing:
WE ARE IN ONE OF THE RICHEST PLACES ON EARTH – IN SCOTLAND
As I continued my journey down south I became more and more aware of the traffic on the northbound carriageway. Every time I glanced over I was aware it was stationery. I was on a perpetual stop-start and moving very slowly – but even after a short spell getting back to normal motorway speeds the traffic northbound was still stationery. I would not be exaggerating if I said this must have stretched for about 150 miles. This is absolutely NOT UNUSUAL!
Could you imaging travelling north to Glasgow and beginning to queue for Glasgow City Centre at Preston? Welcome to overcrowded England. This is what is sucking the life blood out of the rest of the UK. This is why their is so much unrest about the strain on the population, the strain on resources and the strain on services.
England is massively over-populated for such a small country. It was great when it could suck in wealth from another 60 odd commonwealth countries. That’s all gone! But what does it have now. Where does all its vast wealth demand come from? Let’s think ….
SCOTLAND
Now do we see why we are Better Together!
By the way, I am not having a go at the English because some of my best and closest friends are English. Many of them support Scotland’s quest and would wish Westminster a swift kick up the ass for not representing the ordinary folk and making the UK a better, fairer place for everyone, not just their chums!