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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:45 am 
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I've just been thinking, I wonder if any secluded side street in Surrey* which has any 1920 to the 1960's lanterns  still in situ even after the PFI has been completed.


* Try saying that fairly quickly.

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 Post subject: Re: Surrey PFI
PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 8:30 am 
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Urbis Saturn Land wrote:
I've just been thinking, I wonder if any secluded side street in Surrey* which has any 1920 to the 1960's lanterns  still in situ even after the PFI has been completed.


* Try saying that fairly quickly.


There is always a chance of something somewhere getting forgotten.


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 Post subject: Re: Surrey PFI
PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:27 am 
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Oh yes, things would get forgotten about, that's contractors for you! A good thing because the old stuff would get to survive for longer!

The whole of Wareham Road, in the suburb of Corfe Mullen in Dorset, got relit about 2 years ago but nearly a part of it was forgotten about...

In this Streetview link, you could see the new Iridiums present however just keep clicking forward about 15 times that you will see about 4 or 5 of the original Alpha 8s, which once lit Wareham Road, then after the 15th click then more new Iridiums will appear!

Appalling that these few older streetlights appear to have been forgotten about...


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 Post subject: Re: Surrey PFI
PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 11:26 am 
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Seems odd, especially when they know they're there when it's time to relamp them.


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 Post subject: Re: Surrey PFI
PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:06 pm 
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Stelmer wrote:
Seems odd, especially when they know they're there when it's time to relamp them.


Well, to go off topic, there are a handful of columns on a road in Southampton just before the council boundary. Even though the columns were distinctively Southampton rather than Hampshire, and even though they had Southampton stickers on them, the council missed them out of a replacement scheme because they did not appear on their computerised inventory. Column replacements on the road happened in 2004, but three old columns still survive. Interesting that the Southampton stickers were applied to the columns after the replacement scheme missed them out but before I queried why the columns had not been replaced, so evidently the council knew, but at the same time they didn't know.

Going off topic further, there is this old traction pole with top entry Eleco HW509 in Portsmouth. Column replacement was done by Hampshire County Council in the mid-1990s, but this one column in the middle of the scheme was missed out. Around 15 years have passed, and that includes the 5 year bulk column replacement programme as part of Portsmouth's PFI. And throughout all of this the traction pole has had its lantern relamped; the last relamp was only last year, so it is not as if it has been abandoned. Eventually it will just get casually replaced.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:46 pm 
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Well you think that is bad, how about a lantern which has been forgotton twice and survived 2 relighting schemes?

Take a look at this and this.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:46 pm 
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Where streetlights get forgotten about is not a very good situation because the council/contractor is meant to be doing their jobs properly and get value for money.

When they make mishaps like that then money will get wasted and making the job harder for them in future especially when the council/contractor finally becomes aware about the forgotten streetlights also the fact they have other streetlights to replace as well making the work backlog bigger than before also wasting more money!

The Wareham Road situation is crazy because they had left a few Alpha 8s with Iridiums sandwiched between these on either side that when they did the relighting so couldn't the contractor have simply replaced these as well as there were only a few remaining?

That is a dog's dinner because if Corfe Mullen was inside Poole borough instead of Dorset county then I am pretty sure these Alpha 8s would have been replaced at the same time as the rest of Wareham Road.

It is annoying when streetlight replacement technicians seem to follow orders than their own initiative because a good technician would have made sure these old Alpha 8s get replaced with the rest at the same time.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:57 pm 
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Street lighting maintenance nowadays is done far too much by "what the computer says". With respect to maintenance, let me give an example from Southampton. There were two neighbouring columns on a certain road in Southampton where the brackets had rotated 90 degrees. One day a street lighting crew came out and rectified one of the columns, ignoring the neighbouring column with the same, highly obvious defect. This is just one such situation that leads me to believe that street lighting departments will only rectify defects that have been reported, and not rectify defects that they themselves spot. Another example is the Z9454 with the open bowl down my road. A lantern about three columns away got replaced with a ZX3, yet the Z9454 with the bowl hanging open was not noticed. And it's not as if the road is hidden away, as I know for a fact that somebody from the correct street lighting department with a bucket van lives at one end of the road and probably drives past the defective Z9454 on a daily basis.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:07 pm 
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It could be because the streetlighting department is overworked with low numbers of staff also is unable to recruit any more staff, because of the recession, making it easy to miss things or it is simply too ignorant and relying on computers too much like most government departments and contracting companies of today unfortunately.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:21 pm 
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Phosco152 wrote:
Well you think that is bad, how about a lantern which has been forgotton twice and survived 2 relighting schemes?

Take a look at this and this.



Nice. Does it still work?

I see it's on a private house....i'd take ownership and wire it in as a porch light if it was my house. :lol:


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