The Hodge Blog

Can you believe that council workers painted around a dead badger they encountered in the middle of the road? Damn inconsiderate of the badger to get squashed in that exact spot I say. I suppose they didn’t paint over him and give him a couple of extra stripes!

Equally I didn’t know you had to be trained, or licensed to remove road kill, but then what do i know?

Hampshire workmen paint white lines around dead badger

The dead badger has been removed and the lines will be painted

Workmen painting white lines on a road left a gap for a dead badger because they said it was not their responsibility to move it.

The animal had been killed about a week before on the A338 near Downton, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border.

Hampshire County Council said the workers did what they thought "was best" because it is the district council’s job to remove carcasses.

The badger has now been removed and the painting will be completed on Friday.

The county council said there would be no extra cost to taxpayers because the company was being paid a fixed rate for the job.

Businessman Kevin Maul was on his way home from work when he noticed the break in the lines.

He said: "I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I saw this poor old badger who had been there over a week.

"I’d seen him every day as I went by and wondered if he was going to be picked up.

"Then on Friday I drove home to see his body between the lines – they had painted the road, but left a gap where he lay."

Hampshire County Council is responsible for the line painting but New Forest District Council is responsible for clearing road kill.

The two failed to arrange the clearance before line painting began.

‘Not trained’

Mel Kendal, county council environment chief, said: "We would usually liaise with our colleagues at the district council who dispose of animal carcasses on the highways to ensure the badger was removed before the white line painting crew did this stretch of road.

"This appears not to have happened in this case and the white line painting crew did what they thought was best until arrangements could be made to dispose of the carcass.

"These arrangements have now been made and the gap in the white lines will be filled in, at no extra cost to the council tax payer."

Council contractor Amey said the staff from sub-contractor Bellstan were not "licensed or trained" to remove road kill.

Oh dear, this could be short today as we appear to have had a pretty stormy night and the power seems to have bumped off at some point, causing all the clocks in the house to reset. Can you see where this is going? Yes, slightly late after an over-sleep. I cannot remember the last time. Fortunately I am an early riser naturally, so rather than 6:15am it was 6:40am, so just 25 minutes, but that makes all the difference as there are jobs to do still, not least this. Anyhow, chickens are done, coffee made, breakfast here and I need to still catch the 7:34am to Portsmouth Harbour.

The road at the end of the lane has been pretty nicely re-surfaced, as they promised, although it took a day longer. I was tempted to ask if they had 600 square metres spare to do my part of the drive, but it never quite seemed the right time

Managed to get some more of the wood trim down last night but the route was not simple, we had to lay a sub base to the mat well trim and then glue the mat well trim to that. Without it the trim would have been dangerously floating with a possibility of the trim snapping if someone trod on it. So, tonight we hope to get the carpet underlay down and the doormat in. The door bar between the hall and dining room was cut but for some reason, after scraping out the excess adhesive from the expansion gap between, the ‘no more nails’ glue seemed not to want to adhere well to either the floor or the wood of the door bar. That will have to be a job for tonight along with the last bit in the living room in front of the grate.

Anyhow, gotta dash………

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = Not a great start to the day

Mood meter = Hate being late although the week has progressed toward the weekend quite nicely!