Frequently asked questions about...gullies!

Following the February budget announcement that an injection of £4 million funding would boost Transport for Buckinghamshire's (TfB) gully clearance programme, work will begin from 4th May 2021. This additional investment will enable each of the 80,000 gullies on the road network to be cleared.

Ahead of the programme beginning, we've answered some of your most frequently asked questions about gullies and the gully clearing programme... 

What is a gully?

A road gully is a small pot placed along the edge of the road and covered from the top by gully grating, which is made of a steel frame. The main purpose of a gully is to collect surface water off the road and direct it to an existing drainage network, which includes a ditch system, a large soakaway or a water course.

What is a soakaway?

A soakaway is a drainage pit covered by a metal cover which many road gullies feed into. Its purpose is to allow Highway water coming into a gully to feed into this soakaway and drain naturally into the surrounding subsoil. They can get blocked with silt, and in times of high water tables (e.g. excessive rainfall and flooding), they will take a lot longer to drain away. This leaves gullies looking full due to the soakaway being backed up with no water penetrating the subsoil surrounding the area.

 

What is a grip and why do they need re-cutting?

A grip is a channel cut within a grass verge to allow running and pooling water from rural road surfaces into a parallel drainage ditch that normally runs alongside the road. Rural roads with no man-made gully drainage systems benefit from grips being cut. However, in recent years we have seen a rise in verge overruns by cars and vehicles blocking grips and stopping running water entering the ditch systems. It is important to maintain grips to ensure they are kept open and free of damage or grass growth to allow water to exit the highway and soak into the ditch systems.

 

How often will you clean a gully?

From the start of this new financial year we have started cleansing all gullies on an annual basis. Previously, we cleaned gullies on A and B roads on a cyclical basis and all other gullies were cleaned once every three years. In addition to this, we will also be cleaning out soakaways and ditches, which is something we have been unable to do routinely before due to budget constraints.

 

How many gully cleaning machines do you have?

We have three gully cleaning machines in house, once located at each area depot – Aylesbury, Wycombe and Amersham. However, this year we have also hired an additional four machines with operators, from our supply chain partners, which means a total of seven machines will be working across the contract.

 

When does your gully cleaning programme start?

Our new gully cleaning programme commences from 4^th May 2021 with the cyclic programme and will continue until 31^st March 2022.

 

How long can you spend on a stuck gully?

Sometimes, our crews come across a gully cover that is stuck, which means we can’t access it to clean it. Our crews do carry tools with them that can help in this situation, but they cannot spend longer than ten minutes trying to get access to a gully. If we cannot get access, we will record it on our system and return to release it.

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Think, keep calm and just turn back

Think, keep calm and just turn back. A slogan we coined in 2019 as part of our new 'Respect our Workforce' campaign, designed to eliminate abuse directed at our customer facing team members.

Sadly, abuse towards our workforce is still an issue that we have to deal with on a very regular basis.

Our staff are sworn and shouted at, spat at, have rubbish thrown at them, are physically assaulted and have even been threatened with weapons. All too often, members of the public are even driving through road closures because they don't want to use the diversion route, putting our crews lives - and their own lives - at risk. 

Our staff are regularly facing abuse simply for doing their jobs. It's got to stop. 

We have taken the necessary action our end. We use bodycams. We have signs up advising of the use of CCTV on site and asking the travelling public to respect our workforce. We ask for our workers to be respected via social media. Ideally, we wouldn't even have to ask, but the reality of the situation is that it's still necessary to. 

Everyone deserves to feel safe at work. Everyone deserves to return home in one piece at the end of the day. 

Our team members; they're more than just that. They are mums and dads, brothers and sisters, friends. They have families to go home to safely at the end of the day. That is the bare minimum you expect when you go to work. It's something that everyone deserves, our workforce included.

We understand that our work and the work of our utility companies and supply chain partners can be frustrating for you, the travelling public. Closed roads and temporary traffic lights can add time to your already long day and stopping at a site where you can't see work happening can be the last straw on a bad day. 

We are the travelling public too. We get it. But it's still never an excuse to abuse our workforce.

That is why we are asking once again, that people think, keep calm and just turn back. 

Our workforce are here to do a job. They are here to look after our roads and make sure they're safe for you to travel on. Issues on the road are not the fault of our workforce, so please do not take out any frustrations you may have on them. 

It doesn't stop with the customer facing workforce, either. If you're speaking to someone on the phone, through email or via social media, please still remember to respect our workforce and treat them as you yourself would want to be treated. Swearing, threats and name calling are all unnecessary - and yet our workforce still deal with this on an all too regular basis. 

To ease your frustrations, it can help to plan ahead. Make sure you're checking your route on one.network, a satnav or other route checkers online ahead of any journey's you make, as this will advise you of closures, diversions and delays. 

If you spot a defect, report it on Fix My Street where it can be allocated to the appropriate team - please don't make an abusive phone call to us about it. 

We know that roadworks cause frustrations at the best of times, but no one ever deserves to be abused simply for doing their job. 

We will bring the abuse of our workforce to an end. 

Please think, keep calm and just turn back. 

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