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 Post subject: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:04 am 
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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100224/vid ... bfa63.html

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Last edited by nick217 on Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:04 am 
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USL gave me a newspaper cutting about this today. It seems like the old "southern practice" of leaving an old column unearthed without having any foundation secured.... as the pictures show work in the area, and a new lamp post adjacent to the fallen one.
A gust of wind has (what I think) caused the pole to fall. The HSE are investigating, and hopefully it'll put an end to this highly stupid practice of unearthing a column and then leaving it there...


(btw, whilst not wanting to nit-pick, it's probably best that you put in a line or two of descriptive text before putting in a link... as it can sometimes look a bit dodgy)

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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:58 am 
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Reminds me of what happened in Portsmouth, where they dug around the foundations of a column and the column toppled. This dangerous practice is sadly quite common with the monkeys who do the work. It is also a byproduct of British working hours, where they dig a hole and leave it for days, rather than getting it dug and filled quickly.


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 4:35 pm 
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Sad news has just been announced on the radio. The young boy who was crushed has now died.

Thoughts and prayers with his family at the tragic loss.


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 4:52 pm 
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The problem is one contractor is paid to dig the holes, then the Utility company come along often weeks later to connect/disconnect. That is seen as more cost effective than paying for the utility company to do the excavation at the point of connect/disconnect.


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:05 pm 
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I've just remembered that incident in Southampton last year where some cowboy house builders undermined the foundations of a concrete column. The column was leaning at approximately 45 degrees, and that is no exaggeration. The only thing stopping the column from completely toppling were the electric cables connecting to the column.


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:51 pm 
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Up here I've never seen a column unearthed before removal, that just sounds completely irresponsible as has been proved with this tragic story. Here, often both columns, old and new, are left connected up side-by-side until the old one is removed. Of course this is a waste of electric but it's better than the dangerous situation which seems to occur on the south coast by all reports.


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:23 pm 
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Here is what happens when you undermine the foundations of a column. The PFI contractor's van parked there was 'monitoring' the situation until another crew came to fix the problem. Photo taken by phosco152:


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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:53 pm 
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sotonsteve wrote:
Here is what happens when you undermine the foundations of a column. The PFI contractor's van parked there was 'monitoring' the situation until another crew came to fix the problem. Photo taken by phosco152:


I've seen this picture a few times now, but it never ceases to make me laugh that cars happily carry on driving underneith it anyway!  :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: Lamppost falling
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 10:00 pm 
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The drivers of said cars probably aren't 'happily' going past... they're probably thinking "holy ****! I hope that doesn't hit the car!"

Gramma6 wrote:
Up here I've never seen a column unearthed before removal, that just sounds completely irresponsible as has been proved with this tragic story. Here, often both columns, old and new, are left connected up side-by-side until the old one is removed. Of course this is a waste of electric but it's better than the dangerous situation which seems to occur on the south coast by all reports.


Same up here. When it comes to replacements, a fairly narrow trough is dug out (probably a couple of inches wide at best) in front of both columns and the cable transferred across... OR, the new column is bedded in, then the contractor comes to connect the new column and takes up the tarmac, connects the column and then re-lays the tarmac without him leaving the column unearthed. SOmetimes we get both columns connected, other times we have neither connected... but never a column leaning over at a stupid angle.

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