South-West Scotland Enquiries

[Steven]

Please be careful about conflating "U" with "unclassified road", as they are not the same thing.

Some authorities use "U" for their Class III network.

Some authorities use different letters, a range of letters or no letters at all for their unclassified networks.

[coneman]

It's not just D and U roads, pretty much every letter of the alphabet appears to have been used somewhere across the country. Some authorities have two prefix letters - I think Edinburgh were using ZC at one point for instance, and routes that have moved authority can have odd prefixes or suffixes too.

The problem with going further than Class III routes, which are normally numbered with C prefixes, is that every single road in the country has some form of identifier given to it by the local council, and it is very rare that the only identifier is the street name. Some councils are sensible and give a number to long routes, and maybe include some short cul-de-sacs as spurs, others will give a different number to each sector of a route (normally between junctions). I know that a couple of Scottish Authorities have done this for Urban C roads, so presume they have for other routes and I think the Isle of Man have too. We don't have the time or other resources to create a wiki page for all of them - there could be several million in total.
Not only that, but as we are finding with the C roads, the councils aren't always very forthcoming with exactly which route has which number, and can be pretty vague and just say which routes are Class III and maybe which numbers are used, and let us try to piece the two together. In Scotland the only authority that didn't have route lists properly identified on their own websites was Glasgow. I haven't checked recently to see if this has changed, and I know that some of the other authorities have changed the way the data was published, so it is either clearer or less helpful than when we went through and did the wiki pages a few years ago. I haven't got round to updating them yet.

That’s why you need Freedom of Information requests. Local authorities are required to answer these by law, so they shouldn’t fail to get you your info. There are exemptions to the FOI act, but none of the, should apply to road numbering. If you word your request properly, it should do well. A suggested wording would be this:

“I would like to request a full listing of C, D & U roads in your jurisdiction, and I would like their termini and numbers to be tabulated for easy reading.”

I do believe that D & U roads could be placed on list articles. Taking my local authority as an example, you could have something like “List of U roads in East Ayrshire”. This would contain a table with the road numbers and termini.

Also, Coneman, do you have the number for the Mull of Galloway road? If you do, then let me know. Also, your profile picture isn’t very clear, as I don’t recognise what it means.

There have been many links put up by others in how to find out a particular councils C & U class numbers and in the case of D&G Council their's is easy to find and navigate thus:-

The Mull of Galloway road - U169w.

As for my profile pic it is the cap badge of my former army regiment - the Corps of Royal Engineers - which I served in for 14 years from 1976 to 1990 as a heavy plant operator involved in roads and airfield construction & maintenance wherever the army was serving in the world at that time.

[DanT97]

It's not just D and U roads, pretty much every letter of the alphabet appears to have been used somewhere across the country. Some authorities have two prefix letters - I think Edinburgh were using ZC at one point for instance, and routes that have moved authority can have odd prefixes or suffixes too.

The problem with going further than Class III routes, which are normally numbered with C prefixes, is that every single road in the country has some form of identifier given to it by the local council, and it is very rare that the only identifier is the street name. Some councils are sensible and give a number to long routes, and maybe include some short cul-de-sacs as spurs, others will give a different number to each sector of a route (normally between junctions). I know that a couple of Scottish Authorities have done this for Urban C roads, so presume they have for other routes and I think the Isle of Man have too. We don't have the time or other resources to create a wiki page for all of them - there could be several million in total.
Not only that, but as we are finding with the C roads, the councils aren't always very forthcoming with exactly which route has which number, and can be pretty vague and just say which routes are Class III and maybe which numbers are used, and let us try to piece the two together. In Scotland the only authority that didn't have route lists properly identified on their own websites was Glasgow. I haven't checked recently to see if this has changed, and I know that some of the other authorities have changed the way the data was published, so it is either clearer or less helpful than when we went through and did the wiki pages a few years ago. I haven't got round to updating them yet.

That’s why you need Freedom of Information requests. Local authorities are required to answer these by law, so they shouldn’t fail to get you your info. There are exemptions to the FOI act, but none of the, should apply to road numbering. If you word your request properly, it should do well. A suggested wording would be this:

“I would like to request a full listing of C, D & U roads in your jurisdiction, and I would like their termini and numbers to be tabulated for easy reading.”

I do believe that D & U roads could be placed on list articles. Taking my local authority as an example, you could have something like “List of U roads in East Ayrshire”. This would contain a table with the road numbers and termini.

Also, Coneman, do you have the number for the Mull of Galloway road? If you do, then let me know. Also, your profile picture isn’t very clear, as I don’t recognise what it means.

There have been many links put up by others in how to find out a particular councils C & U class numbers and in the case of D&G Council their's is easy to find and navigate thus:-

The Mull of Galloway road - U169w.

mull3.jpg

As for my profile pic it is the cap badge of my former army regiment - the Corps of Royal Engineers - which I served in for 14 years from 1976 to 1990 as a heavy plant operator involved in roads and airfield construction & maintenance wherever the army was serving in the world at that time.

You make some very interesting points. Your badge is also interesting. That’s all I needed to hear. I have nothing more to say.

[Summers-lad]

That’s why you need Freedom of Information requests. Local authorities are required to answer these by law, so they shouldn’t fail to get you your info. There are exemptions to the FOI act, but none of the, should apply to road numbering. If you word your request properly, it should do well. A suggested wording would be this:

“I would like to request a full listing of C, D & U roads in your jurisdiction, and I would like their termini and numbers to be tabulated for easy reading.”

I do believe that D & U roads could be placed on list articles. Taking my local authority as an example, you could have something like “List of U roads in East Ayrshire”. This would contain a table with the road numbers and termini.

Also, Coneman, do you have the number for the Mull of Galloway road? If you do, then let me know. Also, your profile picture isn’t very clear, as I don’t recognise what it means.

This is the sort of FOI request that takes up officers' time to no good purpose, and therefore distracts from more productive work. If the information is already published, the reply will (or should) be to point you to the website, so the inquirer could have done it themselves (as RileyRob has shown with some examples). If it isn't, I would expect most authorities to be able to provide the information, but not necessarily in the format you request. By providing a list, they will have given the information, so fulfilled the law, but you can do the formatting yourself if that's what you want.

I get FOI requests (not for roads - that's not my role) which vary subtly, even if they're asking for essentially similar information. It's not usually viable to configure all the information in the form requested, which is quite a different matter from not providing it. If information is held in a good database, it should be straightforward to provide an answer, but that isn't always the case.

FOIs are an important part of the democratic process, and I have used them to help improve the way that information is stored. Some requests covering a whole subject area and sent to a large number of Councils are a useful way of (for example) journalists collating information on the effect of budget cuts (assuming the journalists have a basic grasp of the subject, which they don't always), but others give the impression (rightly or wrongly) of people with nothing better to do with their time. A reason for the request, although not required for an FOI, can give helpful context for the person answering, and may result in a bit more explanation (which for this topic shouldn't be needed if the data is readily available, but could be informative if it isn't).

[DanT97]

That’s why you need Freedom of Information requests. Local authorities are required to answer these by law, so they shouldn’t fail to get you your info. There are exemptions to the FOI act, but none of the, should apply to road numbering. If you word your request properly, it should do well. A suggested wording would be this:

“I would like to request a full listing of C, D & U roads in your jurisdiction, and I would like their termini and numbers to be tabulated for easy reading.”

I do believe that D & U roads could be placed on list articles. Taking my local authority as an example, you could have something like “List of U roads in East Ayrshire”. This would contain a table with the road numbers and termini.

Also, Coneman, do you have the number for the Mull of Galloway road? If you do, then let me know. Also, your profile picture isn’t very clear, as I don’t recognise what it means.

This is the sort of FOI request that takes up officers' time to no good purpose, and therefore distracts from more productive work. If the information is already published, the reply will (or should) be to point you to the website, so the inquirer could have done it themselves (as RileyRob has shown with some examples). If it isn't, I would expect most authorities to be able to provide the information, but not necessarily in the format you request. By providing a list, they will have given the information, so fulfilled the law, but you can do the formatting yourself if that's what you want.

I get FOI requests (not for roads - that's not my role) which vary subtly, even if they're asking for essentially similar information. It's not usually viable to configure all the information in the form requested, which is quite a different matter from not providing it. If information is held in a good database, it should be straightforward to provide an answer, but that isn't always the case.

FOIs are an important part of the democratic process, and I have used them to help improve the way that information is stored. Some requests covering a whole subject area and sent to a large number of Councils are a useful way of (for example) journalists collating information on the effect of budget cuts (assuming the journalists have a basic grasp of the subject, which they don't always), but others give the impression (rightly or wrongly) of people with nothing better to do with their time. A reason for the request, although not required for an FOI, can give helpful context for the person answering, and may result in a bit more explanation (which for this topic shouldn't be needed if the data is readily available, but could be informative if it isn't).

In that case, I would recommend telling them that we want to create a detailed archive of every road that has ever existed.

[Summers-lad]

In that case, I would recommend telling them that we want to create a detailed archive of every road that has ever existed.

Unfortunately the Roman Empire isn't subject to FOI legislation. (This time I'm being tongue-in-cheek.)

[DanT97]

In that case, I would recommend telling them that we want to create a detailed archive of every road that has ever existed.

Unfortunately the Roman Empire isn't subject to FOI legislation. (This time I'm being tongue-in-cheek.)

True, but at least you could kill the Emperor if you didn’t like him. Try that now, and a man or woman in a funny wig asks you strange questions, you get locked in a cage, and you can never ever work a decent job again.

[AndyB]

The honest answer is that whatever information you think it would be helpful to obtain via FOI or Environmental Information Request, it’s up to you to obtain it. You’re a private British citizen, you’re lawfully entitled to make the request.

The reason for this is simple:

At the moment you haven’t convinced anyone else that it’s information that they ought to get to help themselves.

Going back to the OP, it would be bad practice to create an article about a named street and it will only be merged into either the place name (if it’s of sufficient interest to merit a full article) or the article about the route of which it forms part.

[KeithW]

True, but at least you could kill the Emperor if you didn’t like him. Try that now, and a man or woman in a funny wig asks you strange questions, you get locked in a cage, and you can never ever work a decent job again.

Well unless you were one of the imperial family with the support of the praetorian guard you would end your days in a prolonged and very unpleasant manner. The actual penalty was death (usually by beheading) and confiscation of property, coupled with complete civil disability. A traitor could not make a will or a gift or emancipate a slave. Torture was routinely used to extract a confession, if the killer had a family it was quite normal practice to kill them as well. Since virgins could not be punished female members of the family would usually be raped first.

If you had the support of the Senate and Guard then the fate of Caligula was typical. He was murdered by his closest advisors, including members of his Praetorian Guard. To prevent reprisals, they also killed his wife and daughter.

Licinius was another example not only was he hanged but his memory was branded with infamy; his statues were thrown down; and by edict, all his laws and judicial proceedings during his reign were abolished. Such official erasure from the public record has come to be called damnatio memoriae. In 20th century terms he became an unperson - one of the disappeared.

As to your original question the list of C Class roads in Portpatrick is back on line here
https://www.dumgal.gov.uk/media/18023/L ... 7480970000

The answer to our question appears to be its the U183w.