Enough is enough, as pioneering new funding initiative launched

Confidential has learned that Manchester City Council and Salford City Council have banded together to create what they call ‘a pioneering new way of funding road works in the face of on-going austerity’.

The key area of concern, as anybody who has driven into Manchester will be aware, are the Regent Road works from the Chester Road roundabout in Manchester and out through Salford to infinity. These have caused delays, anger and frustration for hundreds of thousands of drivers and danger for pedestrians and cyclists. 

This was exacerbated by the collapse of Dawnus, the main contractor, earlier this month.

We might even be able to convince them to work weekends. Someone said it might speed things up a bit...

“With the contractor going bust,” said a spokesperson for the councils, “we’ve decided to seek alternative ways to fund the Regent Road scheme. We’ve heard of this crowd-funding thing, whereby you, the public, pay your own hard-earned money to help provide equipment for kids, boost charities, create community gardens and open Gary Usher’s restaurants.

“If he can do it, so can we. So we're asking the public to stick their hands in their pockets and help us raise the £25m needed to bring this shit show to an end. Yes, we know council tax has already risen way above inflation but what's a few more quid... we might even be able to convince them to work weekends and nights. Someone said it might speed things up a bit, to be honest, we hadn't thought of that one.

“For those lovely people who help out with crowd-funding we guarantee them all an opportunity to paint one of the white hashed lines in the middle of the road. And, they will also get to use the traffic lights for free.”

Confidential asked who was to blame for the farce of the Regent Road works.

“It would be easy to blame the Brexit chaos for any problem now,” added the spokesperson, “so we will. It’s Brexit’s fault. We, and all other councils, are entirely blameless in anything that goes wrong our own areas of responsibility, it’s all Theresa May’s doing.”