Can we talk about potholes please? Why are there so many?

[Irememberwhenitwasallfieldsroundhere]

Motorways seem to be reasonably well maintained but I recently drove from London to Oxford and the state of the roads is a disgrace.

Does anyone know why? Are councils or the highways agency not responsible for repairing the roads?

It's really shocking - my Waze tells me about a pothole every 10 minutes it seems.

Also, is there anything anyone can do about it? If enough people complain will councils fix the roads?

SEND should come out of the overall education & health bucket. If more kids are being born prematurely and with health and learning issues related to health and disability, it should come out of a central budget. Babies have checks and there is data on delays via the NHS and there needs to be centralised forward planning. Most of the large SEND spend is linked to health issues. For more minor SEND that is just a learning issue, state schools need to be fully funded from the get go. Early intervention makes a big difference.
Parliament can change the law, they are just too chicken to.

Why is it always the send children that need support/funding cutting though? No one suggest cutting care for the adults.

Because they can't vote against it.

„Why is it always the send children that need support/funding cutting though?“

That is not what I proposed. Countless kids with SEND are being failed and are unsupported because councils are delaying because they overspent on select few with SEND where private companies are profiteering. Due largely to lack of forward planning.
Every time a severely premature baby is born and survives, in a better system that would automatically allocate much higher educational spending on that child. Same with Down‘s, chromosomal deletions. Because we have a national health service the data is all there anyway as to likely higher needs in quite a high percentage of cases. It can also be fed through via 2 yearly checks and preschool data. The politicians are just lying because kids don’t get a vote. In many cases, it’s obvious from a baby being a few months old that they are going to cost a lot and that funding should be centrally allocated. At the moment, you have an absurd situation where a whole lot of kids with SEND are being failed by heath and education and end up as NEETS because of lack of forward planning and the budget being completely blown on the cases pretty much known from birth or a few months old. And the politicians failing to plan for those. There is complete dishonesty and lack of forward planning in the entire system. A lot is to do with medical advances but everyone is too chicken to have honest conversations around it.

To bring it back to pot holes, SEND kids in mini vans carted around for miles and unreasonably so, often with detrimental impact on their health, are also impacted by potholes, as the mini vans drive over them. So are people in care homes. Everyone is impacts by potholes that is the whole point. It’s pretty much like the health service and refuse collecting and toilet paper! And food supply.

Why are there so many kids with SENDs nowadays? That is the thing that needs to be studied and investigated because it is costing us so much as a country.

A cynic might ask why there are some many private companies involved in providing SEND care. Which is the chicken and which is the egg ?

Well, that’s the million dollar question. It isn’t really an increase in SEND per se, it’s an increase in autism and ADHD. I can’t remember seeing anything suggesting Downs Syndrome has increased, or any other condition really.

I think it’s a mix of things. Older parents, more anxiety inducing factors in society, screen time affecting social interaction, plus a genuine increase in profound non verbal autism for reasons unknown.

Their parents can, and are a very vocal lobby.

Adults are expected to pay for their own care if eligible.

Doesn't mean they act as one though.

No but if I’m being brutally honest some of them - and I mean a minority, the ones who are borderline famous - are quite bullying in the way they approach anyone who doesn’t agree with 100% of what they say.

Only if they have the money to do so. Plenty don't have to contribute.

People who don't drive probably DO consider public transport essential.

It's a measure of how car-centric we are as a society that people think that anything that invests in public transport (or in my area, a foot crossing over a busy road) is a waste of money.

I on the other hand think the "upgrade" to J10 of the M25 is a big waste of money. The £300 million spent on it would pay for a lot of pothole repairs.

Yes, ‘if eligible’ I said

I know you weren't. I was just talking generally. Everyone's on about cutting SEND costs but no one says 'oh you know what we should start screwing over vulnerable adults'. I just wonder why the focus is always send children why are they fair game? Is it because of the whole 'over diagnosis' thing we keep seeing pushed? In real terms SEND in schools is lower now than it was in 2010-2012. I posted this the other day but people don't seem to want to believe it. This week I've seen people on Twitter blaming send children for potholes and here we are again sigh

You made it sound like everyone who qualifies for an adult care package has to contribute. Thats not the case. Some people won't know there's a two step process, are you eligible for a care package, then are you eligible for financial support towards the costs of said care.

Saying someone is eligible to pay towards their care is like like saying 'I'm eligible to pay my electric bill' it's a strange way of wording it.

Im always complaining to the council about them and if they are deep enough they get fixed.

Because frankly disabled adults in need of care tend to have Downs Syndrome or brain damage, they’re not high functioning autistics with no learning disability but ‘very anxious’.

Why are there so many kids with SEND and so many 90 year olds costing a bomb?
The answer is obvious. Medical advances. The NHS is extremely good at keeping people alive and the costs go far beyond the NHS itself. Baffles me that anyone needs to even ask why.
Obviously, if you can keep people alive for longer and weaker babies then it is going to cost.

The problem is that kids with some minor existing SEND or mental health issues, if not addressed, end up costing a bomb too, eventually. Just like ignored infrastructure. The stuff all needs to be repaired early and on time to avoid further problems.
So I agree, politicians should focus on maintenance rather than fanciful projects. Early intervention is always cheaper in the long run. Same applies to setting aside funding for known problems, like premature babies and an elderly population. Rather than just buying votes off the elderly. It is the completely lack of honesty that gets to people. Hence the political turmoil now. Most people are actually quite reaonsable if things are explained properly from the get go.

No because the majority of diagnoses are ASD and ADHD which in many cases weren’t even apparent until they were well into primary.

Preferm birth is massively statistically linked to ADHD. On a population level, it is quite easy to calculate how many extra cases of ADHD you are going to have based on preterm births.

Did you really mean to be so rude ?

Wow.

You'll hate the fact that there are indeed adults as you describe with social care packages then.

I don’t hate it. But ‘disabled’ used to mean something very different. I can’t remember the last time ‘SEN’ was used to refer to anything apart from autism and ADHD. It’s almost synonymous.