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Norm’s ramblings for the year of 2008
Norm’s ramblings for the year of 2008
Column for April 2008
I still see people illegally parked in our High Street, so when will the Borough Council use the new powers they have to catch residents via their CCTV system?
There, that got you thinking again!
Back to serious matters. Once again the apathy group are winning as we have a group in the town trying to improve the lot of the elderly and disabled. Due to lack of interest there is a danger that we will lose it (Hemel have already folded!!). Once again, in the ‘Review’ should be this note:
Berkhamsted Access Group
The group meets every three months to address access and disability problems in the town and organised by the Borough Councils access officer, John Gavin, so things can get done!.
At the last meeting, it was reported that W H Smith will be providing a customer lift to the basement this Spring (one of our achievements), the loss of some disabled parking in the Lower Kings Road car park should be improved shortly (another achievement).
Next meeting on 9th May at 3pm in the Civic Centre 1st floor meeting room. New members always welcome!
More information at http://www.berko.org.uk/page4.html.
Things I do for you lot!!
Electricity in the home
Just to bring everyone up to date, domestic electrical work carried out since 1st January 2005 comes within the remit of Building Control regulations administered by the local authority and any additions made in 'special locations' have to be notified as do any new circuits. Special locations include bathrooms, kitchens and outside.
The idea was to reduce the number of fatalities caused by faulty electrical installations. The little difficulty was that the numbers rose from 2 to 13 per year over the period 2003 to 2007 at which time they stopped keeping records for some reason. My own opinion is that they allowed anyone with the correct piece of paper to call themselves an electrician, register with one of 'registration bodies' and then let loose on the general public.
The latest little problem to hit the industry is the latest version of the wiring regulations which are also known as BS7671:2008 and come into effect for installations designed after June 2008. You notice the word 'designed' as this is important. A good example is the 60's housing boom where a lot of Dellfield estate and the top half of the Hall Park estate was built. The 14th edition was issued in 1966 and introduced the idea of actually having a protective conductor on the lighting circuits as many metal light fittings actually make use of this wire. I'm still finding properties built as late as 1969 without an earth wire on the lighting circuits and metal fittings installed.
The latest edition is also known as the 17th and the biggest change which will affect us is a 'woolly' requirement to have any circuit protected by a residual current device (RCD) if the cables are not buried at least 50mm below the surface of the floor, wall or ceiling unless they are protected by a earthed metal enclosure. Needless to say, this is causing a few difficulties when coupled with some of the other requirements.
For example, the easiest way to comply would be to just bury cables 50mm into a wall, but few walls are 100mm thick and then think of the structural weakness introduced by cutting half the thickness away. Just install one RCD to protect all circuits and the problem goes away, but....
Then there is another requirement that circuits should be arranged so that a fault on one does not affect another.
Very laudable apart from another requirement that unless the earth fault path resistance is low enough, a RCD needs to protect all circuits anyway, and in any case, any socket which may be used for an appliance outside has to have RCD protection – and it goes on!
BS7671:2008 was issued in January 2008, to come into effect from July 2008 and you will not be surprised to hear that amendments are already on their way which the grapevine suggests could number 20 or more. I believe most of us at the 'sharp end' are still wondering how this situation actually arose.
In any case, dare I suggest you should be guided by your usual electrician when having any work done as every installation is different and has different problems. A quick example is a recent job I was on, where the plumber had plumbed in a water softener for the new boiler. One small difficulty was that the pipe passed across the front of the socket in which the supply for the softener was to be taken so you couldn't actually plug it in. I think it must have been one of the new invisible sockets that the public want installed.
A cynical view – perhaps?
The recent court case about getting a criminal record for 'overfilling' your rubbish bin, only go to reinforce my view that the new powers given to the Borough Councils so that if something is possible, then it will end up being used.
Technology gave us CCTV to 'make our town centres safer'. I recall when I expressed concerns, then if I had nothing to hide, there would be nothing to worry about. Ten years on, the very same CCTV system, can be used to send you a fine if you overstay parking in the High Street for just a minute or not park correctly within the marked parking bay. You can now be identified, either by your vehicle or by facial recognition, and be followed as you go about you lawful business without you even being aware. Throw away that cigarette end, sweet wrapper or bus ticket and in the post will be the summons together with the fine for dropping litter.
You may think I'm being paranoid, but when the 'parking attendants' were first introduced, I thought that as the idea was to reduce illegal parking and that it would be revenue neutral, it wouldn't work. Now we find the income has to be increased due to increased costs. No one seems to remember that the idea was to improve parking in the town, but things have got worse with no real effort by either the Town or Borough Councils to resolve the situation. It appears that it's more important (and easier) to increase income, rather than identify who parks where and why and find ways to alleviate the problem.
How many 'school children' drive into town and park all day or why are so many vehicles allowed to pavement park? Answering these simple questions would enable an 'action plan' to be drawn up as we can't continue to ruin our town by allowing 'commuters' to park all day within easy walking distance of the station (aka town centre) and slowly kill the retail centre. Just look at Lower Kings Road at the moment!
The 'capping' that the poor old Borough and County County Councils have to put up with, does not apply to Town and Parish Councils, so they can raise their 'precept' (rates) to fund any project for the benefit of residents. In fact, when Local Government was reorganised in 1974, it was assumed that they would wither and die and our Urban and Rural Councils thought exactly that and passed everything over to the Borough (except the allotments – only to start selling some of them!).
Perhaps it's about time our Town Council started to take action before the town dies by being overwhelmed by the motor car and lack of facilities (apart from eating yourself to death). The new Council has had time to formulate plans to revive the town and there is 'tinkering' via the Canal and Riverside Partnership (CARP) and the Berkhamsted Community Partnership. Funding is available for imaginative schemes, but most is time limited or restricted in it's scope. Just because something is the responsibility of another body, doesn't mean that nothing can be done.
Concurrent services is taken up by other Town and Parish Councils, but not ours. This is the process where the Borough/County Council 'devolves' services down complete with funding. It works elsewhere, so why not here? Maybe the 'upper levels' of local government might find that we could do it better and that wouldn't do, would it? Just think, our Town Warden could actually do something instead of asking and then having to chase someone else to do it.
I can dream!
Just a 'quickie'. Anyone hoping to go to the free July 13th event in Gadebridge Park, might like to check first as I hear that the Borough Council have requested the organisers for details of their actions in case of an accident in the River Gade. I understand the organisers consider this the last straw and have bailed out. As the Borough are responsible, are they saving money and shifting the responsibility?
Back to serious matters. Once again the apathy group are winning as we have a group in the town trying to improve the lot of the elderly and disabled. Due to lack of interest there is a danger that we will lose it (Hemel have already folded!!). Once again, in the ‘Review’ should be this note:
Berkhamsted Access Group
The group meets every three months to address access and disability problems in the town and organised by the Borough Councils access officer, John Gavin, so things can get done!.
At the last meeting, it was reported that W H Smith will be providing a customer lift to the basement this Spring (one of our achievements), the loss of some disabled parking in the Lower Kings Road car park should be improved shortly (another achievement).
Next meeting on 9th May at 3pm in the Civic Centre 1st floor meeting room. New members always welcome!
More information at http://www.berko.org.uk/page4.html.
Things I do for you lot!!
Electricity in the home
Just to bring everyone up to date, domestic electrical work carried out since 1st January 2005 comes within the remit of Building Control regulations administered by the local authority and any additions made in 'special locations' have to be notified as do any new circuits. Special locations include bathrooms, kitchens and outside.
The idea was to reduce the number of fatalities caused by faulty electrical installations. The little difficulty was that the numbers rose from 2 to 13 per year over the period 2003 to 2007 at which time they stopped keeping records for some reason. My own opinion is that they allowed anyone with the correct piece of paper to call themselves an electrician, register with one of 'registration bodies' and then let loose on the general public.
The latest little problem to hit the industry is the latest version of the wiring regulations which are also known as BS7671:2008 and come into effect for installations designed after June 2008. You notice the word 'designed' as this is important. A good example is the 60's housing boom where a lot of Dellfield estate and the top half of the Hall Park estate was built. The 14th edition was issued in 1966 and introduced the idea of actually having a protective conductor on the lighting circuits as many metal light fittings actually make use of this wire. I'm still finding properties built as late as 1969 without an earth wire on the lighting circuits and metal fittings installed.
The latest edition is also known as the 17th and the biggest change which will affect us is a 'woolly' requirement to have any circuit protected by a residual current device (RCD) if the cables are not buried at least 50mm below the surface of the floor, wall or ceiling unless they are protected by a earthed metal enclosure. Needless to say, this is causing a few difficulties when coupled with some of the other requirements.
For example, the easiest way to comply would be to just bury cables 50mm into a wall, but few walls are 100mm thick and then think of the structural weakness introduced by cutting half the thickness away. Just install one RCD to protect all circuits and the problem goes away, but....
Then there is another requirement that circuits should be arranged so that a fault on one does not affect another.
Very laudable apart from another requirement that unless the earth fault path resistance is low enough, a RCD needs to protect all circuits anyway, and in any case, any socket which may be used for an appliance outside has to have RCD protection – and it goes on!
BS7671:2008 was issued in January 2008, to come into effect from July 2008 and you will not be surprised to hear that amendments are already on their way which the grapevine suggests could number 20 or more. I believe most of us at the 'sharp end' are still wondering how this situation actually arose.
In any case, dare I suggest you should be guided by your usual electrician when having any work done as every installation is different and has different problems. A quick example is a recent job I was on, where the plumber had plumbed in a water softener for the new boiler. One small difficulty was that the pipe passed across the front of the socket in which the supply for the softener was to be taken so you couldn't actually plug it in. I think it must have been one of the new invisible sockets that the public want installed.
A cynical view – perhaps?
The recent court case about getting a criminal record for 'overfilling' your rubbish bin, only go to reinforce my view that the new powers given to the Borough Councils so that if something is possible, then it will end up being used.
Technology gave us CCTV to 'make our town centres safer'. I recall when I expressed concerns, then if I had nothing to hide, there would be nothing to worry about. Ten years on, the very same CCTV system, can be used to send you a fine if you overstay parking in the High Street for just a minute or not park correctly within the marked parking bay. You can now be identified, either by your vehicle or by facial recognition, and be followed as you go about you lawful business without you even being aware. Throw away that cigarette end, sweet wrapper or bus ticket and in the post will be the summons together with the fine for dropping litter.
You may think I'm being paranoid, but when the 'parking attendants' were first introduced, I thought that as the idea was to reduce illegal parking and that it would be revenue neutral, it wouldn't work. Now we find the income has to be increased due to increased costs. No one seems to remember that the idea was to improve parking in the town, but things have got worse with no real effort by either the Town or Borough Councils to resolve the situation. It appears that it's more important (and easier) to increase income, rather than identify who parks where and why and find ways to alleviate the problem.
How many 'school children' drive into town and park all day or why are so many vehicles allowed to pavement park? Answering these simple questions would enable an 'action plan' to be drawn up as we can't continue to ruin our town by allowing 'commuters' to park all day within easy walking distance of the station (aka town centre) and slowly kill the retail centre. Just look at Lower Kings Road at the moment!
The 'capping' that the poor old Borough and County County Councils have to put up with, does not apply to Town and Parish Councils, so they can raise their 'precept' (rates) to fund any project for the benefit of residents. In fact, when Local Government was reorganised in 1974, it was assumed that they would wither and die and our Urban and Rural Councils thought exactly that and passed everything over to the Borough (except the allotments – only to start selling some of them!).
Perhaps it's about time our Town Council started to take action before the town dies by being overwhelmed by the motor car and lack of facilities (apart from eating yourself to death). The new Council has had time to formulate plans to revive the town and there is 'tinkering' via the Canal and Riverside Partnership (CARP) and the Berkhamsted Community Partnership. Funding is available for imaginative schemes, but most is time limited or restricted in it's scope. Just because something is the responsibility of another body, doesn't mean that nothing can be done.
Concurrent services is taken up by other Town and Parish Councils, but not ours. This is the process where the Borough/County Council 'devolves' services down complete with funding. It works elsewhere, so why not here? Maybe the 'upper levels' of local government might find that we could do it better and that wouldn't do, would it? Just think, our Town Warden could actually do something instead of asking and then having to chase someone else to do it.
I can dream!
Just a 'quickie'. Anyone hoping to go to the free July 13th event in Gadebridge Park, might like to check first as I hear that the Borough Council have requested the organisers for details of their actions in case of an accident in the River Gade. I understand the organisers consider this the last straw and have bailed out. As the Borough are responsible, are they saving money and shifting the responsibility?
