Devon and Somerset £16m fire control centre not used in 10 years
BBC Spotlight
Posted at
10:47

It's emerged the new fire control centre for Devon and Somerset in Taunton has remained unused, ever since it was built 10 years ago.
The BBC has now learned that the total cost to taxpayers has reached almost £16m - that's nearly double the amount it actually cost to build it in the first place.

Tam McFarlane, from the Devon and Somerset Fire Brigades Union, said: "It's absolutely extraordinary to me that politicians can't find people to take it over, they need to start using their imagination. At this time of heightened security why can't the security services use it. In any event there has to be an end to this waste of taxpayers money."

Councils...

...hmmph.

That was the Regional fire control centre in Taunton that was due to be sublet last year?

Yes, those were never a very good idea - Yorkshire fire crews sent to wrong address by Cornwall control centre. And the PFI financing model was even worse: drawn up by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when they were trying to ape the Tories, weren't they? Trouble is, the Tories had about 200 years head start in 'how to line your friends' pockets'.

Edit - I think it's a bit similar to the way that the de-mutualised British Building Societies were taken for a sucker punch by the American 'bad mortgage' derivatives market. And we all know what happened then...

The PM count since mid-day - so in the last six hours - has now reached seven. The latest exchange was statement - contradiction with evidence - 'all I know is...'. It's sad, really.

It's sad, really.

Is "it" whom I suspect?

---

It's sad, really.

Is "it" whom I suspect?

There are two clues if you read back through the thread.

Hmm...

Safety comes first

...(some) councils not bad after all.

""We've already got a smoke alarm system, carbon monoxide alarms in every flat. All the doors have been uprated - the law only requires 30-minute fire doors to isolate each flat and PCH have insisted on 60 minutes, so much, much, much better than anything the law requires."

London not so superior after all. In fact, Inferior to many :-)

I was approaching it from the point of view of the materials manufacturer/supplier. Reynobond is patented - Composite panel with a foamed plastic core, US 6455148 B1 - which gives it a certain amount of monopoly protection.

The patent makes much of architectural uses, and cites the Reynobond trade mark. It mentions that the outer metal sheets are "made from a corrosion-resistant aluminum alloy" (american spelling), but the word 'fire' (as in testing, retardant, etc.) appears nowhere.

Probably because "fire" and "plastic" mix very very well.

Yes, to make plastic start with petrol.

In this case it was apparently an exploding fridge. HTF that happens is beyond me.

---

I was approaching it from the point of view of the materials manufacturer/supplier. Reynobond is patented - Composite panel with a foamed plastic core, US 6455148 B1 - which gives it a certain amount of monopoly protection.

The patent makes much of architectural uses, and cites the Reynobond trade mark. It mentions that the outer metal sheets are "made from a corrosion-resistant aluminum alloy" (american spelling), but the word 'fire' (as in testing, retardant, etc.) appears nowhere.

Probably because "fire" and "plastic" mix very very well.

Yes, to make plastic start with petrol.

In this case it was apparently an exploding fridge. HTF that happens is beyond me.

Followed by an open window (on one of the hottest nights of the year), which let the fire out of the flat and into the cladding.

Yes, to make plastic start with petrol.

In this case it was apparently an exploding fridge. HTF that happens is beyond me.

Er, meaning petrol, distilled oil, is one of the main ingredients in many plastics. It is used to get the long polymer chains.

As to the fridge, anything with electric motors can overheat, and there is oil in the compressor used to move the Freon in the sealed cooling loop. IIRC While Freon burns, at room conditions it isn't self sustaining. Also very nasty combustion products.

---

Just read this story from my local bleeding heart liberal lefty rag , the company that makes the cladding used on that tower block

Suffolk suppliers of insulation used in the £8.6million refurbishment of Grenfell Tower say it will no longer be supplied for cladding on high-rise buildings.

link to the story
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk-firm-celotex-based-in-hadleigh-halts-supplies-of-insulation-used-in-grenfell-tower-cladding-1-5076491

Overall an estimated cost of £50,000,000.

Make that an estimated £100,000,000

I'm pretty sure that there are many here who can recall watching public information films about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack & civil defence while growing up.

The difference half a century makes...

...ain't progress a bitch!

It seems much of what I do here and thereabouts is open to an excess of misinterpretation that I don't see coming until it is too late, people - often for some poor unsuspecting someone-else left to deal with the consequences of what I started. My sincere apologies to anyone so affected.

So! :) If I do do what I was told, it won't be because I was told to do it - because anniet's don't operate like that - but because I don't have the time for the fallout if I don't :) as I'm sure others don't either.

@Mark
Thank you for this:

link to the story
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk-firm-celotex-based-in-hadleigh-halts-supplies-of-insulation-used-in-grenfell-tower-cladding-1-5076491

I will add it my list of news outlets to peruse in future. It's full of interesting things we don't get to hear much about, if at all where I am :) Is there another on the right of the spectrum for purposes of balance though? I've come across this one but lost focus as to its slant after I got a bit outraged by the advert at the top. That kind of thing must drain the economy of local communities quite significantly I would have thought :(

I've come across this one but lost focus as to its slant after I got a bit outraged by the advert at the top. That kind of thing must drain the economy of local communities quite significantly I would have thought :(

It's the same company just that links aimed at Norfolk ( turnip crunching lands !!! )

So, carry on as you are. I've said several times before but it's worth repeating again.

"If we were all the same, it would be a boring world"

It's because of those differences, we never saw jackboots marching down Whitehall. :-)

I've come across this one but lost focus as to its slant after I got a bit outraged by the advert at the top.

May I suggest AdBlock Plus Does wonders at making the web more enjoyable.

---

I've come across this one but lost focus as to its slant after I got a bit outraged by the advert at the top. That kind of thing must drain the economy of local communities quite significantly I would have thought :(

It's the same company just that links aimed at Norfolk ( turnip crunching lands !!! )

I did wonder as much on the ownership side :)

I think it was a few years ago now - but I vaguely recall 70% of the UK national news market was alleged to be controlled by just three companies whilst numerous independent local papers, had either closed or been bought up - until just 4 companies I think it was, held majority ownership over all local outlets.

As to turnip crunching lands... my family history on my mum's side includes turnip crunching at Houghton Hall dating back about 750 years ;) until tempered by Suffolk blood about 350 years ago :) which went quite well for some time from what I can tell. What followed some years later (on a personal level) was that everything went a bit pear-shaped. Yes :) but that could simply have been because ancestrally - at some point - we stopped crunching on turnips... although I don't know that for sure...

;)

@

May I suggest AdBlock Plus Does wonders at making the web more enjoyable.

I will give it a try, thank you, Gary - although I do enjoy the occasional outrage from time to time ;) It keeps me on my toes.

@

"If we were all the same, it would be a boring world"

oh it would most definitely. We'd all stop talking to each other just from nodding off all the time midst our own sentences. Or maybe that's just me...

Anyway - my other reason for being here is to amend something I said earlier. About a telling. Yes :) It wasn't. I've been reliably informed I was being well advised instead - as in a suggestion - which is heartening to hear :)

Oh dear...

Britain

and

Royalty

...today.

"The state-owned bank said it was moving the jobs"
"But it can't go on as it has done under the Queen. There will be changes and pressure to get them right."

"But it can't go on as it has done under the Queen. There will be changes and pressure to get them right."

Thank you for both links, Sir :-) Also from the latter:

"Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I don't think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right time."

Good sentiments, but would all subjects agree if those duties were performed without the excesses so loved by monarchists? ;-)



Anniet - was it not a turnip cruncher associated with Houghton Hall that became the first and longest serving Prime Minister of your adopted homeland? Of a party - if memory serves adequately - that almost - but not quite - exterminated the Conservative Party from the political map?

;-)

So we can expect plain sailing ahead :-)

Done deal

Of a party - if memory serves adequately - that almost - but not quite - exterminated the Conservative Party from the political map?

;-)

You are referring to the good old days, Mr Ffing, yes ;) under a granddad of several greats I haven't worked out but my mum once knew and now doesn't. Fast forward a few generations and whilst it was still fiiiine for men to father children on the wrong side of the bedcovers, let a daughter do it and want to keep her baby - and she gets incarcerated in her parent's big house and her baby taken away. Maybe she'd stopped crunching turnips? Again - I don't know for sure - but it's a theory I'd never considered before...

;)

On other matters - I'm not sure that great big bribe to the DUP is going down too well roundabouts. Wasn't there already 500 million too? And what happens in two years time after it's finished changing pockets? Another present?