Bloomin' ridiculous

[Terry Everall]

As a structural engineer I can state that the post s cannot bend if the bunting is on both side of it

Only the end posts would need checking and even then I cannot see a substantial extra load from a few wet flags!

[Captain Colonial]

As a structural engineer I can state that the post s cannot bend if the bunting is on both side of it

Only the end posts would need checking and even then I cannot see a substantial extra load from a few wet flags!

 

Would certainly tend to agree with you Rev.  There are some intangibles, such as the distance between the lamp posts, tension between the lamp posts of the rope holding the knitwear in question, and historic wind speeds in that region which would create force on the items in both a wet and a dry state.

 

But of course, it's all nonsense - if it's enough to bring down a lamp post, then they were under specified to start with.

 

It's all about allowing precedents to be set if they didn't do something.

 

About 15 years ago, I was doing some temping after being made redundant, and got posted to a company designing and installing mobile phone masts.  "Do you have any experience using CAD?", they asked.  "Yes", I lied profusely to keep a roof over my head.  For the next six months, I modelled and designed mobile phone masts, including the positions of the aerials, the bearings in degrees, and put them through computer simulations with the highest ice and wind loadings ever recorded in the areas where they were being installed, all without the slightest bit of training.  I only left when they were so impressed with my "work" that they offered me a full-time position, because I knew they'd figure out I was useless.  But there's probably about 500 mobile phone masts out there that will either stand forever or are doomed when the next ice storm occurs.

[jeff oakley]

I have no problem with H&S when it is used correctly however, we have a H&S guy at work, where I see a car park he sees a killing field, so we have painted walkways and boxes the everyone ignores but the box is ticked so we are all much safer now.

H&S is used as well by others to stop arguments now. So this council has an individual that is p******** off that permission was not sought to tie bunting. So rather than admit the real reason for the instruction to take them down, they just site H&S and all reasoned argument stops.

 

The trick with the H&S and their rise to power is that they have frightened every employer that without them the employer will go to jail for not complying with an imaginery interpretation of a well meant law. 

[Terry Everall]

Protecting people's rear ends has become a profession and the real safety issues are often ignored 

[Rory's Dad]

Photo sent by NYCC.  The cord does look tight but I don't think it would be strong enough to bend the lighting columns.

 

 

...and text.

 

Dear Sir

You are correct in that it was the end columns that were bending.

The cable, cord or wire that the bunting was hanging from was applied to the top of the column and then tensioned up. It was this sideways tension that caused the previously straight columns to bend in the direction of the applied force(see attached photo). As previously stated it is not the weight of the bunting that is the problem nor did the County Council ever refer to health and safety issues despite reports in the local and national media. In our estimation there was no danger of the column falling over or snapping however, there was the very real possibility of the lighting column being left permanently bent or leaning.

Having spoken with several lighting column manufacturers the bending of the columns was a foreseeable outcome, ordinarily when we know that bunting, catenaries or fairy lights are to be strung between columns we would advise the column manufacturer and they would supply a more robust column. An example of such a column can be found in Bedale Market Place where columns were specifically designed to support tensioned cables. These lighting columns are significantly larger in diameter than those in Masham and have thicker column walls.

On a standard lighting column, manufacturers generally allow us to attach a sign of no more than 0.3sq.m at a mounting height of no more than 3m, anything in excess of that voids the manufacturer's warranty. Given this restriction and the fact that the columns were bending it would have been imprudent for us to allow this particular arrangement to remain. 

Regards
NYCC - Electrical Engineering Team

 

I'm still perplexed by this.  Now that the bunting has gone did the columns spring back.  If it did, what's the problem.  If it didn't the damage had already been done (or done previously).

[dhutch]

To be fair, it think that's a fair call.

 

I have put up punting, and watched someone put up phone cable, and to get it that straight over the span takes a fair amount of tension, and while the poles where probably well within the structural/yield limit its quite possible the load would cause the foundations to move/migrate/creep leaving the poles at an angle.

 

 

Daniel

[SootySport]

I think the Council engineers were right there.    They will now  have a Consultative Committee to decide on the wording, colour and size of new signs to be affixed to the lampposts banning any attachments, should take them a year or two.