@Breakup bigtech free enterprise is a good thing. Making money whilst providing a beneficial service/product as in this case is what makes us great. I have done many a deal in a pub. What has a toll road got to do with Nigel Farage you donut?
I used to use this road daily. It saved me hundreds of hours of time and hundreds of pounds in fuel. The council seemed disproportionately pissed off, considering this is one of the main transport links between Bath and Bristol. The amount of business lost to nearby establishments was unbelievable, and it caused a huge inconvenience to local residents and commuters alike. This guy is a local hero, in my books.
Well, they were shown up by him. Of course they were pissed off. They're a council as well, which often tend to be full of overly-sensitive people with big egos.
3 blokes built an entire road, with toll, in 10 days. The council takes 6 months to fill in a pothole the size of a golf ball, while closing the entire road off for most of that time.
It would be worse if they didn't block the road. My city council came and tried to fill a pothole, during the rainy season, outside my house. Didn't block the road, their efforts and my tax money were gone in less than 24 h
@@TheLocoRunner this road made a loss of tens of thousands of pounds. and because of the lack of consultation with the "big government", they disturbed a historical site and possibly worsened the problem with the road down hill. The "entrepreneur" couldnt afford to fix anything and left it all, the builders removed the road for free out of pity, and archaeologists had to come to investigate how much damage was done.
Challenge: Build a road Kelston after 10 days: Done Montreal after 10 days: Ok, so we've decded on which brand of shovels to use, but what about the hammers?
For those wondering how it ended "The toll road closed on 17 November 2014, when the A431 reopened. Watts said: "We have lost out - a rough estimate is probably about £10,000 to £15,000 adrift. But I'm not complaining."
Should have charged £2.50 or £3 instead of £2 and it would have more than broken even, even if some people had decided to use the official detour instead of paying the increased toll.
@@enkiimuto1041 doesn't say but unlikely, the original builders removed the road free of charge and HM Revenue and Customs also agreed to waive the shortfall in VAT due.
@@sebianoti Scrolling up a bit, posted by 'Adam' " 'As the toll road company had insufficient funds for the reinstatement works, the original builders of the road offered to do this at no charge. HM Revenue and Customs also agreed to waive the shortfall in VAT due.' I guess both the government and the road building company were good sports about it"
@@Damaniel3 Hindsight is great isn't it. We don't know how many people would have chosen the detour on account of the increased toll, so we have no idea whether increasing it would have resulted in a better or a worse financial outcome.
Just watched this again today, and according to the BBC, when it was all said and done, Mike says they were about "£10,000 to £15,000 adrift. But I'm not complaining."
Didn't realise you had headed up my way!! But yes. pretty much as soon as this happened the council somehow managed to massively increase the speed at which they fixed the normal road!
Would have been nice if the public who uses that road would kick in to cover his losses. Because of him, they saved a massive amount of time and money, both because of the shortcut, and the fact that it made the government get the road repaired way ahead of schedule.
They send three guys and finished building the road in 10 days... Where I live they close the road for construction, then wait 3 months before starting the actual constructions... After about 1 month the constructions are completed, but they forget to reopen the road for 2 more months. So after about 6 months the road reopens, ... for 1 month, then the cable company shows up to break the road open and replace cables...
Here in South Africa, the local and provincial authorities are generally corrupt and incapable of getting things done. We are also prone to regular catastrophic floods, which tend to wash out bridges and roads. After a bridge washes away, within a few days a causeway usually appears, constructed by unemployed locals using scrap materials and raw manpower. These locals then charge a nominal fee for the local community to use "their" road, until such time as the government can solve the problem (sometimes years). Completely illegal, but at least the people can get to work. Sometimes it becomes exploitative, but usually the system sort of works.
ROBwithaB, are other people free to set up "their" bridge? You know for competition. Then they could charge less and drivers could choose the bridge they want to cross.
Joel Martin No one would invest in another bride if they'd have to compete with others. You virtually split the traffic 50/50 if there's a large amount of viechles anyways, making profits really small.
I remember on almost all road trips I took with my family we always took the "scenic route", and I absolutely hated it. There was no reason for us to take it since my parents never paid attention to anything on it, and it easily extended our time on the road by a few hours.
To be fair, driving in the UK is about 4 times as expensive as it is in the US due to the price of fuel. So ignoring the time wasted and looking at it purely in terms of fuel cost, driving 14 miles in the UK is roughly equivalent to driving 56 miles in the US.
@@rhidiandavies1991 I live in California, where gas is about $4.30 a gallon right now. In the UK gas is $7.00 a gallon, but cars are also smaller. Average mpg for new cars is 50. Anything newer than 2010 is at least 30 mpg. As long as you aren’t driving a truck you’ve still got the advantage.
To be fair to the council: they have to build a road that'll last 50+ years, taking much heavier traffic - and they have to stabilise the land under it. That takes a long time, and they don't own any other land to route around. The toll road only has to last a few months!
Kombaiyashii Many large-scale construction projects have bonuses and penalties that are dependent on progress and/or completion dates. So to say off-hand that there are no incentives without looking into the contracts is just hand waving. Yes, it is possible that there is no completion date stipulation. However that is very unlikely.
+zlozlozlo - Well, what did they think was going to happen? They came up with this whole Toll Road idea when they were DRINKING at the local pub. How many drunkard ideas did they think have actually been successful?
And then the bastard council decided all of a sudden they could fix the road in record time rather than wait months as initially planned and meant the toll road wasn't in use for long. Not sure if they made their money back :/
They lost a bit of money, but not a lot. I think it was kind of implied that the loses were small enough that everyone walked a way without major damage to their financial situation.
Aw. Was hoping for some people to "stick it to the man" and just run pass the toll road (which is illegal) without paying with no legal repercussions (since the road is illegal).
you know you are not in Slovakia when the story does not end "and we got drunk as hell and puked all over the place" also, you know you are not in Slovakia when this particular story does not end with him being thrown to jail or paying some ridiculous fee for building the road.
@@berealisticdemandthe Councils quite regularly pay much more in contract penalties due to changes in signed contracts, it just doesn't get published. £150k is nothing in legal action to any UK council. Stupid thing is the council should have approached the landowner before the work started and managed the whole issue. I like the fact that the locals did it anyway!
We had a similar problem around here, someone installed a pool at the top of a cliff (with council approval) that caused a landslide. It took around 2 years for the council (or rather the companies hired) to fix the road and secure the cliff. Unfortunately we didn't have a short bypass like this so had to make a long detour that ran through school zones and residential areas, total freeking pain that most people would happily have paid to avoid. Unfortunately councils tend to get stuck on one idea(like May with her plan) and don't consider other options. We could have created a new road/bridge in the spot in a few months and at a lower cost then what they eventually did, but hey why should they care when it's not their money.
lots of people are talking about how either the council construction is taking too long or the toll road's construction is too shoddy. But the real issue is that the council closed off this critical road for months (and w/o this toll road for maybe up to a year), without any concern for the locals and businesses that will be hit by this closure and without providing a good alternative. They could have done the same, after all it looks like the section closed off was not too long, and they could survey this road together with the maintainence work at not much additional cost. But they didnt and that guy did so props to him. Also I love it when ideas in a pub become reality.
"We thought they would say: look, get on and do it, this is great, you've got our full support". Why, in the name of all the universe, did he think they'd say that? Good gosh, this is a council we're talking about, the archenemies of co-operation.
I live in the USA, but my impression is that this man and the farmer are doing a big service to the people. If I had use for that road I would be very happy to pay that toll.
@@bananya6020 Gotta make sure to put those meant to be ruled in their place, especially when bested by the plebs. Same sickening, petty, wanna-be tyrants exist universally wherever there's "power."
@@bananya6020 that's not what happened, the road was just finished earlier than expected they even waived his taxes for the loss to compensate him, stop making things up
well... he did not. He "Just broke even". www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836835/Businessman-hailed-hero-opening-private-toll-road-set-close-claims-won-t-make-penny-council-finds-660-000-fund-repairs-end-road-closure.html
lepondro01 I don't see where you see that. Maybe they updated the article. I think he was expecting to break even before they moved up the A431 fix. But since they moved it up, he lost 10-15k pounds. Source: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-30078393 (Unless I'm misunderstanding "adrift", being a yank :P)
iiorblivionii I sure "We have lost out" says it all. Of course can expect all those he helped out to have find raiser to cover his looses can't he? :). To even to make such a gamble h e surel had the means to absorb a %100 loss or had an very expensive lesson. We shouldn't forget it was lookingg for better route to get to a very nice residence is what got the idea on the road, but if it would pay for itself all the better. Many talk like the needs of the public was the motivation, when the motivation was what he and his wife needed/wanted. even eith the side benefit I can'tconsifered the man some sortof extra ordinary hero. That would be the land owner who it's report didn't get any compensation. Although if the restoration of the road i done right that should a very productive port of his land. Most likely the hardpan has been breached and more water will be stored by the soil
iiorblivionii He was expecting to make thousands of pounds, as the road had originally been scheduled to stay closed for six more weeks. Instead, at 150k pounds to build and 150k pounds to maintain, he breaks even. The last six weeks were his profit weeks, and he sees none. No loss, or at most a marginal loss though, and a fair bit of fame, so it's probably a net positive for the guy.
A similar situation is currently occurring South of Bath at Limpley Stoke on the A36. Again a huge diversion for a 9 month+ road closure but no shortcut this time.
Blackforest98, you really think road ownership would stay "mom & pop"? No. There would be road owners associations and corporations in no time that owned all the roads in town. You wouldn't be stopping at toll booths; you'd be paying a monthly bill. Kind of like what you do now, except smaller and voluntary.
+百合ヶ咲るる That only works in theory. However, in practice, that requires government force to give workers' control and it is extremely inefficient at best and you know what happened in the what one hundred years?
Massively off topic: I'm guessing this is how the road network would work in an anarchist/free market "state". Every bit of road privately owed and you would have to pay 10 tolls to drive between towns :P
Pelle Olsson No, they would not. That's how the situation was in central Europe, especially in germany, for a vew hundert years. There was no united germany but small dukedoms, and on every passing a border, you had to pay crossing tolls - until the toll unions - "Zollvereine" were founded,
lodevijk Well a road tax that also aims to make a profit. And it would inevitably cause a monopoly, as you can't really change your road provider if you are dissatisfied with what they are charging for the street you live on.
It wouldn't look like this if roads were privatised en masse. Since travel is an economic necessity, road maintenance would take the form of road businesses creating contracts for users (especially other businesses which use 18 wheelers). Once this network is built up, it would likely end up something like your gas bill. All our gas comes from the national grid but we buy them through companies which use the infrastructure (also like our telephone companies). Companies would allocate different turfs to work on according to their local share of the market. No doubt you'll see advertising on the roads saying exactly who built what road (to compete against other road companies).
Kombaiyashii Yeah and you would have to pay what they see fit to drive on the roads. You can at least change provider on your phone, which keeps the prices does. A bit harder to change what roads you drive on. Either way, the roads still needs to be payed for. But I think the current system is better than a privatized road network.
This is not unheard of. I used to drive a privately owned toll rd that had a bridge across a river and went around town which was a short cut over going the other way which was a few miles longer and went through town.
That building permit loophole is quite stupid. Imagine applying this to other actions. Someone is robbing the bank (classic example), and they are free to do so and keep all money, unless they are sent a letter or told by the police to stop. But as soon as they leave the bank and the robbery is over, and they haven't been stopped by any official. They're free to go, keep all money, and can't be punished by it afterwards.
Oddly enough building a temporary, 400m long road with no surveying, planning, building codes or even a proper metalled surface, doesn't take that long. Fixing a main road so it can handle millions of cars a year, safely, with adequate drainage and keep doing it for years without the risk of another landslide, takes some time.
In Hatfield a landslide took 5 months to stabilise the land and repair a railway, that had shifted, 5m up and 15m sideways. The ground was still moving 2 months later. Britain can be brilliant. These guy skipped the studies to see if they would damage the slope, the permission, the proper road surface to keep vehicles in good condition. Thank you guys for doing what council could not. Council would have been sued.
rarelibra Not so. In the US, if someone wants a road running through their farm, they hop on their tractor and make one.
10 років тому+83
That my friends, it's called freedom and entrepreneurship.
10 років тому
Damn! That's not so nice then, still, he had the option to do it, though damaging an acheological site is far from good. How did he damage it? was it known to be there?
Agustín Amenabar AFAIK It hasn't even been conclusively proven that the construction of the toll road damaged any archaeological remnants. Here's the two sides of the story: Ms Race: "We applied for retrospective planning permission because it was the right thing to do but I wish we never had. It has cost us a further £25,000 so far. Most recently they have dug up an archaeologist from somewhere and they seem utterly determined to, dare I say it, bankrupt us". The Council: "The toll road goes through an area of medieval strip lynchets (banks of earth caused by ancient farming practices) and field boundary earthworks, and will have damaged the archaeology. Archaeological investigations will need to be carried out during the reinstatement of the land in order to understand what was there and the damage caused." Via: www.bristolpost.co.uk/Kelston-toll-road-couple-hit-council/story-24524033-detail/story.html#ixzz3R3YbNnPu And second of all when do we say enough is enough with regards to preservation? 500 years from now we'll have preservationists going around saying how we have to preserve what we know today as landfills.
10 років тому+2
true, you don't need to preserve absolutely everything old found. Sometime some part is enough, if we preserved everything he would be no space for new history to be made.
@@elizaehrlich It's not about preserving, it's about recording. When archeologists dig up a site it is not preserved either. Archeoleogists record what has been there so future generations can access the records of what is no longer there.
Private works > Bureaucratic tape. We need to start sticking up for each other against any and all governments that only act out of spite of having their inefficiencies revealed.
... and a thank-you-letter from the state, for solving a traffic-problem they couldn't solve. Just that some people are very sensitive about anyone making money with anything, unless it's themselves and it doesn't include work....
“Land Slip” is the cutest and most British term I’ve heard in my entire life. The lands like “Oops, slipped on a banana, guess this whole town is gone.
People shouldn't be forced to adhere to some style that was there. Let people have a little bit of diversity rather than this forced conformity in all aspects of life.
@@mikeburns6603 if we let that happen most cities would be made of brutalist architecture. Also there are other reasons for getting permission e.g. so you cant build a sewage works next to a house, or in this case so the road wouldnt damage others land
@@TheTechmaster1999 It's a temporary-use road from one point to another. If you want to use it, use it at your own risk. If you don't want to use it, then don't. The adults shouldn't need to pay the nanny state to interfere in something so uncomplicated.
@@TheTechmaster1999 Each driver uses the road at their own risk. It's made of smooth asphalt. There's a 3.5T limit. Compared to the majority of roads around the world, this road is very safe for travel. A permit from the nanny state is not necessary.
Fair play to him. If it's not illegal, we should support him. We give how much in taxes to local councils (and they go up everywhere the taxes) and the roads are terrible. Least this man has built a nice private road and the money from it quite clearly will go into local farming. I say well done.
After watching Tom Scott all these years (and watching this one previously), this popped up in my feed again. Although it no longer exists, very cool to watch again!
For anyone else here years later, according to Wikipedia the road close in November of 2014. Idk if they hit their goal to at least make their money back though. Edit: they lost money
@@thetessellater9163 Think about the damage done by driving an additional 15 miles to the environment there and back... The road has been totally ripped out now and it doesn’t even look like it existed, look at Google Maps.
All the best British ideas start as "we were in the local pub one night"
Strangely, that's how overthrown governments happen too!! I wonder why they are closing all of the pubs nowadays? Hmmm....
@Breakup bigtech it's not a public service if it's privately paid for on private land, is it?
@Breakup bigtech free enterprise is a good thing. Making money whilst providing a beneficial service/product as in this case is what makes us great. I have done many a deal in a pub.
What has a toll road got to do with Nigel Farage you donut?
@@Anarchy-Is-Liberty 100%
😂
I used to use this road daily. It saved me hundreds of hours of time and hundreds of pounds in fuel. The council seemed disproportionately pissed off, considering this is one of the main transport links between Bath and Bristol. The amount of business lost to nearby establishments was unbelievable, and it caused a huge inconvenience to local residents and commuters alike. This guy is a local hero, in my books.
Well, they were shown up by him. Of course they were pissed off. They're a council as well, which often tend to be full of overly-sensitive people with big egos.
Of all of the things that I want to be famous for a Luddite wouldn't be one of them but surely we've gotta be smarter than this.
What I really hope is that they learn from this situation, and build two roads between these cities.
Do you know if he got his money back?
thatthinker they said he needed 150,000 cars to pass through and 100,000 had already passed through in the video
3 blokes built an entire road, with toll, in 10 days.
The council takes 6 months to fill in a pothole the size of a golf ball, while closing the entire road off for most of that time.
It would be worse if they didn't block the road. My city council came and tried to fill a pothole, during the rainy season, outside my house. Didn't block the road, their efforts and my tax money were gone in less than 24 h
@@HercadosP Or the workers get hit and killed. Closing the road/lane seems appropriate.
Big Governments = overreaching and extremely inefficient. Give me local contractors any day of the week :)
@@TheLocoRunner this road made a loss of tens of thousands of pounds. and because of the lack of consultation with the "big government", they disturbed a historical site and possibly worsened the problem with the road down hill. The "entrepreneur" couldnt afford to fix anything and left it all, the builders removed the road for free out of pity, and archaeologists had to come to investigate how much damage was done.
@@danielarmfield8226 rly
The toll road is disused and overgrown now but you can still see where the entrance and exit were
did they break even though?
Layarion cost £300,000 and they made a loss of £10,000-15000
@@SpiderManonTRT ouch, so they lost the house?
And it’s gone from Google Maps
@@eleethtahgra7182 what is?
Challenge: Build a road
Kelston after 10 days: Done
Montreal after 10 days: Ok, so we've decded on which brand of shovels to use, but what about the hammers?
Max K Brazil after 10 days: okay, so we’ve decided to build a road, but will it be ready in 5 or 10 years?
Ahhh the Montreal construction Mafia. I love the sight of orange construction cones in the morning
Bruno Lopes but when do we want to begin construction *
I'm sorry, is this some sort of foreign joke that I'm too Dutch to understand?
beunhaas Montreal, in the Quebec province of Canada. Construction times take forever apparently.
For those wondering how it ended "The toll road closed on 17 November 2014, when the A431 reopened. Watts said: "We have lost out - a rough estimate is probably about £10,000 to £15,000 adrift. But I'm not complaining."
Should have charged £2.50 or £3 instead of £2 and it would have more than broken even, even if some people had decided to use the official detour instead of paying the increased toll.
Did they lose their house?
@@enkiimuto1041 doesn't say but unlikely, the original builders removed the road free of charge and HM Revenue and Customs also agreed to waive the shortfall in VAT due.
@@sebianoti Scrolling up a bit, posted by 'Adam'
" 'As the toll road company had insufficient funds for the reinstatement works, the original builders of the road offered to do this at no charge. HM Revenue and Customs also agreed to waive the shortfall in VAT due.'
I guess both the government and the road building company were good sports about it"
@@Damaniel3 Hindsight is great isn't it. We don't know how many people would have chosen the detour on account of the increased toll, so we have no idea whether increasing it would have resulted in a better or a worse financial outcome.
"The public reaction has been [MOTORCYCLE ENGINE]"
We are the subtitle gang
[Excited motorcycle noises]
@@JaEDLanc yes they already know you heard and saw, so thanks for your pointless comment
: )
that wasn't a " MOTORCYCLE ", that was a hairdryer , oh and i hate them things
Thought they were interviewing a 1920s gangster for a minute 😂😂😂
Abruzzi from prison break
sadly none of the local council were available for comment
A 20s gangster
Good for him, it's people like him who got us to where we are today. Certainly not governments or counsils.
Myeah, nice road you got here council. Would be a shame if something happened to it, see. Myeah.
Just watched this again today, and according to the BBC, when it was all said and done, Mike says they were about "£10,000 to £15,000 adrift. But I'm not complaining."
Guess they need another landslide XD
Dang. They should have upped the toll price.
Should have made the cost to use it more.
The city should have covered the cost, for doing such a great public service.
@@protorhinocerator142 But they did... They waived the money as VAT or something along those li es.
a private firm built a road in ten days that would have taken the California road crews 10 years to build.
In New York, it might take a century (see Second Avenue Subway).
That it is possible to build faster says nothing of whether this is a good idea.
not union
MoneyIsSilver what’s your problem with the Freemasons?
wen i took my drivers license in 2004 they had already been working on the 4lanes highway here (ca 70km) they completed it this may. -Norway
Didn't realise you had headed up my way!! But yes. pretty much as soon as this happened the council somehow managed to massively increase the speed at which they fixed the normal road!
🤔
That's what happens when the government has competition.
Disgusting behaviour!
Why did they even care??
Would have been nice if the public who uses that road would kick in to cover his losses. Because of him, they saved a massive amount of time and money, both because of the shortcut, and the fact that it made the government get the road repaired way ahead of schedule.
They send three guys and finished building the road in 10 days...
Where I live they close the road for construction, then wait 3 months before starting the actual constructions...
After about 1 month the constructions are completed, but they forget to reopen the road for 2 more months.
So after about 6 months the road reopens, ...
for 1 month, then the cable company shows up to break the road open and replace cables...
Sounds like my town to me.
Hey, that's where your taxes went! To pay a guy to dig a hole and another one to fill it in
@@HercadosP Where I live 80% of the taxpayers money goes to bureaucracy and paperwork for approval to dig a hole, 20% is left for the actual work.
Germany ?
@@timmy7201 Definetly germany
Here in South Africa, the local and provincial authorities are generally corrupt and incapable of getting things done. We are also prone to regular catastrophic floods, which tend to wash out bridges and roads. After a bridge washes away, within a few days a causeway usually appears, constructed by unemployed locals using scrap materials and raw manpower. These locals then charge a nominal fee for the local community to use "their" road, until such time as the government can solve the problem (sometimes years).
Completely illegal, but at least the people can get to work. Sometimes it becomes exploitative, but usually the system sort of works.
+Bungis Albondigas You mean 'road tax'
ROBwithaB, are other people free to set up "their" bridge? You know for competition. Then they could charge less and drivers could choose the bridge they want to cross.
Joel Martin
No one would invest in another bride if they'd have to compete with others. You virtually split the traffic 50/50 if there's a large amount of viechles anyways, making profits really small.
@@tapwater424 Its called a natural monopoly, high fixed costs to build the bridge and not enough customers.
Plum Bit or “private road tax”, since it was built by the locals
I went to Bath back in 1996. I had a shower when i got there out of spite.
Is it that bad? There is a job vacancy there I'm interested in and I've been considering moving to Bath.
Stavros Sp. bruh
@@StifSP No it's not bad at all
@@StifSP Bath is a lovely place. I was merely being satirical.
Trouble maker....
"there is a detour, but it's about 14 miles long."
British people: D:
Americans: scenic route!
I remember on almost all road trips I took with my family we always took the "scenic route", and I absolutely hated it. There was no reason for us to take it since my parents never paid attention to anything on it, and it easily extended our time on the road by a few hours.
@@rockl79 your parents just wanted to spend the extra time with you
Highway 1 in California in the sea again, was a bit longer
To be fair, driving in the UK is about 4 times as expensive as it is in the US due to the price of fuel. So ignoring the time wasted and looking at it purely in terms of fuel cost, driving 14 miles in the UK is roughly equivalent to driving 56 miles in the US.
@@rhidiandavies1991 I live in California, where gas is about $4.30 a gallon right now. In the UK gas is $7.00 a gallon, but cars are also smaller. Average mpg for new cars is 50. Anything newer than 2010 is at least 30 mpg. As long as you aren’t driving a truck you’ve still got the advantage.
Why does the road repairs take so long? Why could they build a road in 10 days and the repairs are ongoing for months?
To be fair to the council: they have to build a road that'll last 50+ years, taking much heavier traffic - and they have to stabilise the land under it. That takes a long time, and they don't own any other land to route around. The toll road only has to last a few months!
Because the official road is a lot more sophisticated would be my guess.
*****
not to mention the lack of incentive for the workers to get the job done in a hurry.
Kombaiyashii Many large-scale construction projects have bonuses and penalties that are dependent on progress and/or completion dates. So to say off-hand that there are no incentives without looking into the contracts is just hand waving. Yes, it is possible that there is no completion date stipulation. However that is very unlikely.
***** Did the Romans have such as well?
According to Wikipedia, the A431 road eventually opened earlier than expected, and he ended up losing money on the project.
They did pump extra money to rush it and save face.
zlozlozlo that's the British way.
+zlozlozlo - Well, what did they think was going to happen? They came up with this whole Toll Road idea when they were DRINKING at the local pub. How many drunkard ideas did they think have actually been successful?
I hope they made him dig up the damn road too!
Good for the public though. They paid less and had their commute's subsidized by private money.
Well done Mike! Good to see such initiative and well done builders in building the road in 10 days!
And then the bastard council decided all of a sudden they could fix the road in record time rather than wait months as initially planned and meant the toll road wasn't in use for long. Not sure if they made their money back :/
+Just a Quad They didn't make the money back: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-30078393
They lost a bit of money, but not a lot. I think it was kind of implied that the loses were small enough that everyone walked a way without major damage to their financial situation.
Aw. Was hoping for some people to "stick it to the man" and just run pass the toll road (which is illegal) without paying with no legal repercussions (since the road is illegal).
It's private property, thus he can take a picture of your licence plate and report you to the cops.
You would be liable to pay a penalty then by law.
I got so many likes...yet i dont know how
you know you are not in Slovakia when the story does not end "and we got drunk as hell and puked all over the place"
also, you know you are not in Slovakia when this particular story does not end with him being thrown to jail or paying some ridiculous fee for building the road.
+panda4247 You know your not in Ireland when you remember nights at the pub.
Stefan Fischern
Jack Collier You know you're in Scotland when you got drunk at home and then went to the pub!
+kdmc40 that's what we call "vorglühen" in germany
Them: "we were in the pub one night and"
Me: pauses gets popcorn
The reason the council was so upset is because a private citizen solved a problem they couldn't. It made them look bad.
Absolute bollocks. If the council had spent £150k building a temporary road the tax payer would be furious.
@@berealisticdemandthe Councils quite regularly pay much more in contract penalties due to changes in signed contracts, it just doesn't get published.
£150k is nothing in legal action to any UK council. Stupid thing is the council should have approached the landowner before the work started and managed the whole issue. I like the fact that the locals did it anyway!
It all boils down to money at the end of the day.
The town does not own any of the land around the road. They could not do it, unless they were to purchase the land from someone.
"Counsel"
No one is really gonna say anything about the noisiest moped in the world at 2:09 ? Stupid thing is louder than a Boeing 747.
"Loud pipes save lives bro"
2T wanna be cool, so he removed his muffller padding :D
louder than a 777
Tons of students like that at my university. It’s annoying af
come to third world country with big motorbike culture and yall westener would die for the pettiest thing, I swear
This popping up in 2021 is a weird reminder I've been watching Tom for over seven years.
When I read the title I thought some guy had set up his own toll booth and was charging people to cross without the government knowing
They did ! Did you watch the video?
@@Canadafor51stState " hassled and extorted him! " ... I mean what else does government do? public services? HA not since reagan and thatcher ....
@@Canadafor51stState I suspect the original commentor meant on a pre-existing road as a scam.
A toll is a toll, and a roll is a roll, and if we don't get no tolls, then we don't eat no rolls.
"A toll is a toll, you can't say it's only a half"
FTFY
amazing quote. i had forgotten about that movie.
Sean Lewis I believe it comes from the movie men in tights
*don't get ANY tolls
*don't eat ANY rolls
Price of the toll:
Watch the rick roll video
The only time government is mad is when they aren't getting their cut!
but it wasnt really, they werent 100 % supportive but when the toll road guy didnt get his money back the waived his VAT etc.
Darian Zielinsky you’re damn right! They are out for theirs and to hell with what the citizens think of it ! Just get that tax dollars!!
Queen's gotta get hers
Well I didn't see a sign there saying "Do Not Setup a Toll Road Here"
“The sign said ‘fine for parking’, so I parked there.”
Or as I see it, Hey this place is unguarded. I can do what I want here.
We had a similar problem around here, someone installed a pool at the top of a cliff (with council approval) that caused a landslide. It took around 2 years for the council (or rather the companies hired) to fix the road and secure the cliff. Unfortunately we didn't have a short bypass like this so had to make a long detour that ran through school zones and residential areas, total freeking pain that most people would happily have paid to avoid.
Unfortunately councils tend to get stuck on one idea(like May with her plan) and don't consider other options. We could have created a new road/bridge in the spot in a few months and at a lower cost then what they eventually did, but hey why should they care when it's not their money.
This is one of the most British things I've ever seen - I love it!
I'll bet it's not on Apple maps.
Because it's no longer in use.
1DABTube it was probably not on Apple maps while it was in use. But it's still on Google Maps while being out of use.
Nothing is
Apple maps is like the opposite of the room of requirement, it only contains things you don’t want.
It is on Apple Maps.
This is like a libertarian wet dream
No ones replied so I just want you to know that 74 people enjoyed your comment from two years ago
Agreed
@@anthonyhadsell2673 so nice
Just came
I saw the video and said to myself "oh yes I'm going to love this"
lots of people are talking about how either the council construction is taking too long or the toll road's construction is too shoddy. But the real issue is that the council closed off this critical road for months (and w/o this toll road for maybe up to a year), without any concern for the locals and businesses that will be hit by this closure and without providing a good alternative. They could have done the same, after all it looks like the section closed off was not too long, and they could survey this road together with the maintainence work at not much additional cost. But they didnt and that guy did so props to him. Also I love it when ideas in a pub become reality.
Awesome! Thanks for the video Tom.
"We thought they would say: look, get on and do it, this is great, you've got our full support". Why, in the name of all the universe, did he think they'd say that? Good gosh, this is a council we're talking about, the archenemies of co-operation.
This has got heartwarming British underdog comedy-drama written all over it.
I think it would work as the B plot to a Will Sharpe show.
I read about this weeks ago. I support this guy, he's quite something. I'd go drive it a few times if I was in the UK just to support him.
They ended up not making all the money back by some 10k.
L
Good.
@@Antreas_1994 min wager spotted
That sucks. It seems like they had the money to afford it, but still, you want good deeds to be rewarded, not punished.
Not a bad result if you ask me. Building that road cost quite a bit.
I live in the USA, but my impression is that this man and the farmer are doing a big service to the people. If I had use for that road I would be very happy to pay that toll.
Pure entrepreneurship at work. That's really cool.
and then the council got angry and paid extra to finish the road faster so that the person here would leave at a loss
@@bananya6020 Gotta make sure to put those meant to be ruled in their place, especially when bested by the plebs. Same sickening, petty, wanna-be tyrants exist universally wherever there's "power."
@@bananya6020 that's not what happened, the road was just finished earlier than expected they even waived his taxes for the loss to compensate him, stop making things up
I hope the guy makes his money back :)
well... he did not. He "Just broke even".
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836835/Businessman-hailed-hero-opening-private-toll-road-set-close-claims-won-t-make-penny-council-finds-660-000-fund-repairs-end-road-closure.html
lepondro01 I don't see where you see that. Maybe they updated the article. I think he was expecting to break even before they moved up the A431 fix. But since they moved it up, he lost 10-15k pounds. Source: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-30078393 (Unless I'm misunderstanding "adrift", being a yank :P)
well... this means that some quantum physics must be in play, he lost and broken even all at the same time!
iiorblivionii
I sure "We have lost out" says it all. Of course can expect all those he helped out to have find raiser to cover his looses can't he? :). To even to make such a gamble h e surel had the means to absorb a %100 loss or had an very expensive lesson. We shouldn't forget it was lookingg for better route to get to a very nice residence is what got the idea on the road, but if it would pay for itself all the better. Many talk like the needs of the public was the motivation, when the motivation was what he and his wife needed/wanted. even eith the side benefit I can'tconsifered the man some sortof extra ordinary hero. That would be the land owner who it's report didn't get any compensation. Although if the restoration of the road i done right that should a very productive port of his land. Most likely the hardpan has been breached and more water will be stored by the soil
iiorblivionii He was expecting to make thousands of pounds, as the road had originally been scheduled to stay closed for six more weeks. Instead, at 150k pounds to build and 150k pounds to maintain, he breaks even. The last six weeks were his profit weeks, and he sees none. No loss, or at most a marginal loss though, and a fair bit of fame, so it's probably a net positive for the guy.
The thumbnail screams
“I was a businessman doing business”
now its a pokemon stop
Pokestop*
StopN'Poke*
Stop Drop and Poke*
@@Kaiwala I thought that was what they called the local dogging area... (FYI: Don't look that up)
@@jackgreen7989 I should've listened
Thats so smart! Hats off to this guy!
Smart idea although he did lose money as the road was rebuilt sooner than expected
I think he likes to keep his hat on!
2:09 I'm more impressed they still allow 2 stroke motorcycles on the road.
2stroke now use cleaner oil. I love my 2stroke
it's just small engines. it is not making the Earth hotter. Thermoelectric plants are lot worse.
That's brilliant. More power to him, I say.
Great initiative; the served a need to the community .
Well done chaps
A similar situation is currently occurring South of Bath at Limpley Stoke on the A36. Again a huge diversion for a 9 month+ road closure but no shortcut this time.
"But who will build the roads?"
Apparently the smart guy wanting to help people will build the roads.
Read because a toll on every single street is what we want.
Well arguably the toll is a sort of mini-tax for those that want to use it. You already pay to use roads, just it is through a tax, not a toll.
Blackforest98, you really think road ownership would stay "mom & pop"? No. There would be road owners associations and corporations in no time that owned all the roads in town. You wouldn't be stopping at toll booths; you'd be paying a monthly bill. Kind of like what you do now, except smaller and voluntary.
Is this a meme or something?
0:54
Oh, thanks so much for the translation; now I _really_ understand what you're talking about. XD
Your property your road your rights to it. End of story.
I was honestly expecting this to be a lot slimier than it is. really nice!
And the 13 people who dislike i think they are from the council
Or people that want more regulations on their economy aka socialism even though the British economy is already overregulated.
but socialism is worker's control over the means of production, not regulation of business ;w;
+百合ヶ咲るる That only works in theory. However, in practice, that requires government force to give workers' control and it is extremely inefficient at best and you know what happened in the what one hundred years?
How come? Can you elaborate?
I'm not from the council, but I don't like rich landowners and profiteers making money exploiting workers and trying to undermine local government.
UA-cam is showing me this again, and for once, I'm very happy about it showing me random videos.
Massively off topic: I'm guessing this is how the road network would work in an anarchist/free market "state". Every bit of road privately owed and you would have to pay 10 tolls to drive between towns :P
Yhm.. no. This would be highly unpractical, so rather sooner than later the owners would come up with a convenient solution for the road users.
Pelle Olsson No, they would not.
That's how the situation was in central Europe, especially in germany, for a vew hundert years. There was no united germany but small dukedoms, and on every passing a border, you had to pay crossing tolls - until the toll unions - "Zollvereine" were founded,
lodevijk Well a road tax that also aims to make a profit. And it would inevitably cause a monopoly, as you can't really change your road provider if you are dissatisfied with what they are charging for the street you live on.
It wouldn't look like this if roads were privatised en masse. Since travel is an economic necessity, road maintenance would take the form of road businesses creating contracts for users (especially other businesses which use 18 wheelers).
Once this network is built up, it would likely end up something like your gas bill. All our gas comes from the national grid but we buy them through companies which use the infrastructure (also like our telephone companies). Companies would allocate different turfs to work on according to their local share of the market. No doubt you'll see advertising on the roads saying exactly who built what road (to compete against other road companies).
Kombaiyashii Yeah and you would have to pay what they see fit to drive on the roads. You can at least change provider on your phone, which keeps the prices does. A bit harder to change what roads you drive on.
Either way, the roads still needs to be payed for. But I think the current system is better than a privatized road network.
This sort of thing happens because it is usually easier to get forgiveness than to get permission.
Bravo! Isn't that the spirit of adding value at grass roots level!
Who is going to build the roads without government?
This guy clearly
I don't know. The Coastguard?
6 years later and this pops up. UA-cam is so weird.
Oh well done and may it long continue for you.
Brilliant, and that's from a retired highways engineer.
The one thing road pirates hate is someone doing what they do.
In U.S. you'd be arrested, fined, and they'd just confiscate your road and increase the toll price.
I mean it’s basically just a driveway that connect to the road on 2 sides
Yes thats exactly what it is. The toll is there to pay for the road that was privately funded.
That describes a road
This is not unheard of. I used to drive a privately owned toll rd that had a bridge across a river and went around town which was a short cut over going the other way which was a few miles longer and went through town.
That building permit loophole is quite stupid. Imagine applying this to other actions. Someone is robbing the bank (classic example), and they are free to do so and keep all money, unless they are sent a letter or told by the police to stop. But as soon as they leave the bank and the robbery is over, and they haven't been stopped by any official. They're free to go, keep all money, and can't be punished by it afterwards.
UA-cam, your algorithm never stops surprising.
The council won't like it because they're not getting their slice of the profits.
They still have to pay income tax.
@H M they lost money in the end apparently
No profit in toll roads for years usually. But a great piece of community action.
@@ji-di7zr Because the council finished ahead of schedule.... for once.
And because there were no preliminary studies of the impact and durability/safety of the road
What a great story! God bless entrepreneurs👍🏼
It's good to have this side road. Might come in handy someday in an emergency.
i like how they got a road build in 10 days, but it will take the council months to fix the land nearby
modern britain
Oddly enough building a temporary, 400m long road with no surveying, planning, building codes or even a proper metalled surface, doesn't take that long.
Fixing a main road so it can handle millions of cars a year, safely, with adequate drainage and keep doing it for years without the risk of another landslide, takes some time.
In Hatfield a landslide took 5 months to stabilise the land and repair a railway, that had shifted, 5m up and 15m sideways. The ground was still moving 2 months later. Britain can be brilliant.
These guy skipped the studies to see if they would damage the slope, the permission, the proper road surface to keep vehicles in good condition.
Thank you guys for doing what council could not.
Council would have been sued.
My school bus used this road never thought it meant anything this worthy like a Tom Scott video
Dont lie, who else got this in their recommended 6 years later?
Received today 16.11.20
Just today
yup, right now. 11/15/2020
Just in my recommended now November 2020. Algorithm robot ₩@nk€r$.
¥€$
Love CAPITALISM!!
You sad fucker!
A little initiative can go a long way! Love it!
yeah in the US the local municipality would have paid to have them come by and block off the private road.
There are private toll roads all over America, there's like 2000 private highways alone
+MrRideutah yes, but they are very likely approved before being constructed...
Not likely. I the US, people can pretty much do what they want with their land, as long as it isn't in a city.
Timothy Fish you are misinformed.
rarelibra Not so. In the US, if someone wants a road running through their farm, they hop on their tractor and make one.
That my friends, it's called freedom and entrepreneurship.
Damn! That's not so nice then, still, he had the option to do it, though damaging an acheological site is far from good. How did he damage it? was it known to be there?
Agustín Amenabar AFAIK It hasn't even been conclusively proven that the construction of the toll road damaged any archaeological remnants.
Here's the two sides of the story:
Ms Race: "We applied for retrospective planning permission because it was the right thing to do but I wish we never had. It has cost us a further £25,000 so far. Most recently they have dug up an archaeologist from somewhere and they seem utterly determined to, dare I say it, bankrupt us".
The Council: "The toll road goes through an area of medieval strip lynchets (banks of earth caused by ancient farming practices) and field boundary earthworks, and will have damaged the archaeology. Archaeological investigations will need to be carried out during the reinstatement of the land in order to understand what was there and the damage caused."
Via: www.bristolpost.co.uk/Kelston-toll-road-couple-hit-council/story-24524033-detail/story.html#ixzz3R3YbNnPu
And second of all when do we say enough is enough with regards to preservation? 500 years from now we'll have preservationists going around saying how we have to preserve what we know today as landfills.
true, you don't need to preserve absolutely everything old found. Sometime some part is enough, if we preserved everything he would be no space for new history to be made.
From the perspective of the landowner...
@@elizaehrlich It's not about preserving, it's about recording. When archeologists dig up a site it is not preserved either. Archeoleogists record what has been there so future generations can access the records of what is no longer there.
Private works > Bureaucratic tape. We need to start sticking up for each other against any and all governments that only act out of spite of having their inefficiencies revealed.
Imagine your government is mad that your not being inconvenienced
Trying really hard to imag...
Got it.
I literally can't.. I have aphantasia..
@@nikkiofthevalley you can't imagine things?
@@gaiusjuliuscaesar9296 Search what aphantasia is.
@@nikkiofthevalley Not being able to mentally visualise things is not the same as not being able to imagine things, you foolish fool.
7 years later can we get a follow up on this?
This is a perfect example of how private enterprise does a better job than the government
How did no one notice your comment! 🙂
This is genius, I hope he gets all his money back.
... and a thank-you-letter from the state, for solving a traffic-problem they couldn't solve.
Just that some people are very sensitive about anyone making money with anything, unless it's themselves and it doesn't include work....
He didn't. The old road reopened and the toll road has been removed.
George Strange
That's too bad. I hope the loss wasn't so bad that they had to sell their house.
He lost about £15,000 on this venture as the main road reopened faster than anticipated
This is absolutely GREAT!
A bypass of similar distance at slightly slower speed, as opposed to a 14 mile (22km) detour, at only a 5% overall loss.
Well done all!
I see you and me both wont let old habits go
@@geocb always good for a chuckle out of nowhere.
this is a fantastic joke, cant believe I havent seen it before
The most surprising part of this story is that the council wasn't petty and remove the road out of spite
“Land Slip” is the cutest and most British term I’ve heard in my entire life. The lands like “Oops, slipped on a banana, guess this whole town is gone.
Tis but a water enriched dirt patch
👌🤣
My mother was right after all . If you want something done then do it yourself.
The people shouldn't need permission from their overlords to build a road on their own property
People shouldn't be forced to adhere to some style that was there. Let people have a little bit of diversity rather than this forced conformity in all aspects of life.
@@mikeburns6603 if we let that happen most cities would be made of brutalist architecture. Also there are other reasons for getting permission e.g. so you cant build a sewage works next to a house, or in this case so the road wouldnt damage others land
@@sanguinespirit2397 +
@@TheTechmaster1999 It's a temporary-use road from one point to another. If you want to use it, use it at your own risk. If you don't want to use it, then don't. The adults shouldn't need to pay the nanny state to interfere in something so uncomplicated.
@@TheTechmaster1999 Each driver uses the road at their own risk. It's made of smooth asphalt. There's a 3.5T limit. Compared to the majority of roads around the world, this road is very safe for travel. A permit from the nanny state is not necessary.
Today the road is completely overgrown and on Google maps you can only tell by an extremely faint line where the road was and the entrances.
I think the people that set up that road are good people. They saw a problem, tried to solve it, and thousands of people have benefited.
where do you get this random stuff from Tom?
+KJP12 it was in the news a lot when it had been built.
Usually someone involved with the project invites him to come and film, and pays his expenses.
Fair play to him. If it's not illegal, we should support him. We give how much in taxes to local councils (and they go up everywhere the taxes) and the roads are terrible. Least this man has built a nice private road and the money from it quite clearly will go into local farming. I say well done.
So the government is angry that a local did something they should have done instead 😂
Yes...
Wait there is a road without government?
yes
yea but usually temporary
After watching Tom Scott all these years (and watching this one previously), this popped up in my feed again. Although it no longer exists, very cool to watch again!
For those who are curious, type [51.396060, -2.419330] (without the brackets) into google maps to see the toll road.
For anyone else here years later, according to Wikipedia the road close in November of 2014. Idk if they hit their goal to at least make their money back though.
Edit: they lost money
They lost money, but the government gave them a massive tax break for the same amount. So nothing really lost.
Well done , free markets economics at its best.
Unnecessarily building a road on greenfield land! I see what you mean.
@@thetessellater9163 Think about the damage done by driving an additional 15 miles to the environment there and back...
The road has been totally ripped out now and it doesn’t even look like it existed, look at Google Maps.
It also lost £15,000 and he had to be bailed out by the tax payers. He did a good thing, but this isn’t “free market capitalism”
Fair play.