Brighouse RRB fun & games

[wellhouse]

My experience of RRBs at Brighouse has been generally pretty good, but for a couple of issues:

1. A bus shelter has been specially constructed in the car park, but it is situated where RRBs normally drop off, on the opposite side to the queue of passengers waiting to go to Huddersfield. Why?

2. Today (Monday 15th September), Calderdale Council have chosen to reconstruct the pavement across the car park entrance, totally blocking vehicular acces so that RRBs have to make a 3-point turn further down Birds Royd Lane. Why?

 

[skyhigh]

2. Today (Monday 15th September), Calderdale Council have chosen to reconstruct the pavement across the car park entrance, totally blocking vehicular acces so that RRBs have to make a 3-point turn further down Birds Royd Lane. Why?

Ask the council why they have decided to do this work now. It's not as if the bus operations are a surprise to them.

 

[BurtonM]

Glad to hear it's not just Stalybridge where it's a shambles.

 

[charley_17/7]

Isn't it Kirklees MBC that cover Mirfield?

 

[nr758123]

Isn't it Kirklees MBC that cover Mirfield?

Yes, but this is Brighouse, which has a HD postcode but is in Calderdale Borough.

A replacement bus/rail interchange at Brighouse was always going to be a bit of a muddle. If only there had been a station at, say, Elland where ample car parking and bus interchange facilities could have been included by design........

 

[AndyHudds]

Been using Brighouse from Huddersfield Monday to Friday and a couple of Satutdays too and, on the whole, it's been pretty efficient but I catch the 254 down in a morning and anything going up in the late afternoon. On the odd occasion I have caught the RRB's they seem pretty efficient and get you back to Huddersfield in reasonably quick time, the whole process hasn't been an unpleasant one as first feared it could well be.

 

[mike57]

Ask the council why they have decided to do this work now. It's not as if the bus operations are a surprise to them.

In general council highways departments seem to work in vacuum sealed silos, where nothing can get in or out including common sense. A good example locally, temporary lights on a busy road locally, scheduled over the recent Bank Holiday weekend, which beacause said road leads to several local attractions probably has its busiest days of the year on August Bank Holiday weekend, far busier even than normal weekday rush hour traffic.

 

[mpthomson]

In general council highways departments seem to work in vacuum sealed silos, where nothing can get in or out including common sense. A good example locally, temporary lights on a busy road locally, scheduled over the recent Bank Holiday weekend, which beacause said road leads to several local attractions probably has its busiest days of the year on August Bank Holiday weekend, far busier even than normal weekday rush hour traffic.

Depends on who's doing the repairs. Utility companies are terrible at liaising with councils about when they need to do work, and sometimes it just needs doing then if it's for a service.

 

[Ellwill]

Depends on who's doing the repairs. Utility companies are terrible at liaising with councils about when they need to do work, and sometimes it just needs doing then if it's for a service.

It's especially annoying when the utility bods come along and rip up a road that's only just been resurfaced by the council within the past couple of months... Usually Cityfibre or SGN from my experience.

 

[Tetchytyke]

In general council highways departments seem to work in vacuum sealed silos, where nothing can get in or out including common sense.

The vast majority of roadworks have nothing to do with the local authority, who have little or no power to object to utilities digging up the road.

There's nothing on One.Network about roadworks outside Brighouse station. But to illustrate my point, Yorkshire Water have roadworks just up the road on Rastrick Common and Northern Powergrid have roadworks jus down the road on Bradford Road.

 

[dcbwhaley]

We are very lucky here in this part of High Peak in that our local councillor leans on the Highway Authority to ensure that road works are not done at silly times..
IO generally disapprove of politicians leaning on civil servants but I make an exception in this case

 

[TUC]

Ask the council why they have decided to do this work now. It's not as if the bus operations are a surprise to them.

Calderdale Council Highways are a regular point of discussion on local social media on how totally inept they are at co-ordinating different pieces of work.

 

[mpthomson]

Calderdale Council Highways are a regular point of discussion on local social media on how totally inept they are at co-ordinating different pieces of work.

To repeat, councils have no control over utility companies wanting to dig roads up.

 

[wellhouse]

To repeat, councils have no control over utility companies wanting to dig roads up.

When the Brighouse Car Park was obstructed, the truck the team were working from was Calderdale Highways, not any of the utilities.

 

[mpthomson]

When the Brighouse Car Park was obstructed, the truck the team were working from was Calderdale Highways, not any of the utilities.

Which is a different scenario then.

 

[Narrowgauge725]

To repeat, councils have no control over utility companies wanting to dig roads up.

I think you will find they do Permit to work

 

[LittleAH]

My experience of RRBs at Brighouse has been generally pretty good, but for a couple of issues:

1. A bus shelter has been specially constructed in the car park, but it is situated where RRBs normally drop off, on the opposite side to the queue of passengers waiting to go to Huddersfield. Why?

2. Today (Monday 15th September), Calderdale Council have chosen to reconstruct the pavement across the car park entrance, totally blocking vehicular acces so that RRBs have to make a 3-point turn further down Birds Royd Lane. Why?

1) Because the shelter is there for after the large scale RRB operation.

2) Because Calderdale council didn’t deal with the entrance before the bus operation. It got so bad they had to tarmac over paved stones.

 

[TUC]

To repeat, councils have no control over utility companies wanting to dig roads up.

Utility companies have a legal duty under regulations like the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 in the UK to notify highway authorities before undertaking road and street works, usually through a permit system.

In addition, I was also referring to Calderdale Council being inept at even co-ordinating different pieces of work they have commissioned so as to avoid multiple hold-ups.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I think you will find they do Permit to work

There are only very very limited reasons why a Local Authority may decline an application for a permit though.

 

[mpthomson]

Utility companies have a legal duty under regulations like the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 in the UK to notify highway authorities before undertaking road and street works, usually through a permit system.

In addition, I was also referring to Calderdale Council being inept at even co-ordinating different pieces of work they have commissioned so as to avoid multiple hold-ups.

As above, there are very few reasons why a local authority can decline these permits. Fundamentally utility companies just tell the authority and then carry out the work.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2025 ==

I think you will find they do Permit to work

As above, there are very few reasons for declining these permits. RRB buses isn't one (and noting that it wasn't utility contractors carrying out these particular works).

 

[Dr Hoo]

If we can discount an urgent ‘utility’ issue - gas leak, burst water main, power cut or telecoms down - what was the critical issue for the local council?

I presume something like a sink hole over an unknown mineshaft or something?

 

[LittleAH]

If we can discount an urgent ‘utility’ issue - gas leak, burst water main, power cut or telecoms down - what was the critical issue for the local council?

I presume something like a sink hole over an unknown mineshaft or something?

As above, there was an issue to the entrance of the car park which could’ve caused damage to the buses and was pooling water. It had previously been flagged to the council but nothing was done. Buses using it and heavy rain escalated the issue so Calderdale council had to come sort it.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Thanks @LittleAH .

 

[TUC]

As above, there are very few reasons why a local authority can decline these permits. Fundamentally utility companies just tell the authority and then carry out the work.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Sep 2025 ==


As above, there are very few reasons for declining these permits. RRB buses isn't one (and noting that it wasn't utility contractors carrying out these particular works).

But part of the intention behind local authorities being given the power to issue these permits was to enable them to adopt a co-ordinating role, not just act as post box.

 

[Roast Veg]

It's especially annoying when the utility bods come along and rip up a road that's only just been resurfaced by the council within the past couple of months... Usually Cityfibre or SGN from my experience.

You won't have to worry about fibre installations for very long - there isn't a lot of government funding left.