The highway authorities have a convenient scapegoat in climate change.
A road floods locally and they claim it is due to climate change and we should start getting used to it. Nothing else they can do....
Especially not the possibility of reinstating the quarterly cleansing of every road gully to remove the silt and stop it blocking up pipes and catchpits. Not to mention the more frequent cleansing of gullys in locations where there is a known regular flooding problem.
The same goes for trees. Once upon a time there was regular inspection of all highway trees to make sure they are safe, along with swift action against anyone with a tree near to a highway which looks sick, or has branches hanging down at double deck bus height. Now we wait for them to fall over or get hit by high vehicles.
All of which reduces resilience when bad weather arrives. Like today.
Largely down to non city centre street cleaning* - Autumn fallen leaves are still around in February , and drain cleaning is , I suspect , yearly + when someone complains or a blockage leads to a mini-lake. Really not good enough.
Plus there is always an argument over who's responsibility it is , and (as ever) - contracting services out leads to the usual nonsense.
Oh for the days of a City / Borough Engineer of the quality there used to be , with a flexible and directly employed workforce.
* City centre street cleaning to be fair is good. Elsewhere , not so.