Our regular
estate diary.
Why not check
back frequently
to see what is
going on at
Kingsholm?
Back Issues
An amazing thing happened today! An eagle-eyed resident told us that someone had attached an extractor fan on a concrete ring beam in one of the low rise blocks.
The council has been telling us for years that nothing must be attached to these beams. And a year or so ago, after the Council's contractors had attached a lot of electrical conduits to beams throught the estate, we raised the matter at Tenats Forum, where it was confirmed that even drilling a small hole to screw something into the beam was a total "no-no"!
But it appears that on Thursday or Friday a contractor arrived at number 23 Sherborne Street - a void property - to install an extractor fan into (or is it out of?) the kitchen of the first floor flat.
In stead of drilling the rather large hole though the brick work, the contractor drilled the hole right through the concrete ring beam and installed the extractor fan!
There are, of course, many questions that we are asking the Council! Were anf of the reinforcing metal rods damaged by the drilling of the hole? Was proper concrete sealant applied to the inside of the hole to protect rust? There were a host of other questions as well.
Initial thoughts of the technical people are that there is no immediate cause for concern. But remedial work will be required - and it won't be cheap!
We will of course be keeping an "eagle eye" on the matter, including a watch on who has to pay for the remedial work!
No doubt they will try an pass the buck to "housing", like they normally do! But as far a we are concerned the Housing Revenue Account will not be paying, unless the clanger can be proved to have come from someone in Housing (which at this early stage we doubt).
Our own "Mystic Meg" suggests that the Council will rule that as Housing did not tell the contractor NOT to install the extractor fan through the concrete, then Housing has to pay for the remedial work.
If this is the case, we will go to bat for Housing Department - no we are not going to let on what we have up our sleeve!
Watch this space!
The strange case of the "top secret" email addresses of Councillors continues!
Still no phone call from "the powers that be" - exactly a week has gone by since our original request.
Mind you, the email addresses of Councillors Paul James and Mark Hawthorne is SO SECRET that their political party published them in their ward news letter, out today!
Another job for MI5?
The good people at TenZero have fixed the problem that has knocked out our guest book for the past few weeks.