Furious , anybody any advice other than a stiff drink?

Councils don`t achieve much, too many jobs worths.

 

Do you remember when Iceland went bust and many local councils had put their money in Icelandic banks?

For months leading up to that news breaking, our local council had ranted incessantly that they were skint so were going to have to put council tax up AND cut local services. This was way before the cuts we're all experiencing now. Then it transpired that our local council was one of the ones that lost the most money when Iceland went bust. My dad raged at the time and even phoned them up demanding to know, if they lost that many millions from their Icelandic savings account, then how on earth could they have claimed to be skint? Their answer was that they were skint because Iceland had lost all their money

 

Nice to see I'm not the only one banging my head against a brick/culvert wall! Managed to get big noise from Scottish Water out to see Council's handy work. His words are unprintable! Suffice to say he agreed with us "idiots" who know nothing that the last 5 days of god knows how many workmen, sub managers, managers is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. He went straight on the phone to the chief exec of the council and told him so.Upshot, we heard from our local councillor that our council have now under "emergency powers" closed our road until at least 21st January! The little Hitler I have been dealing with who is the top person involved with roads smugly told me the works would be completed and road opened YESTERDAY! From the sound of things they are being made to do a proper job, why didn't they do that in the 1st place? When it's sorted we will probably have the dubious pleasure of having the most expensive culvert known to man! Sheal if the farmer had been allowed to dig up the road by the mouth of the culvert he'd have had the whole thing sorted in a morning!

 

Can 'Big Noise' (from the water board) help your case for compo? Perhaps if he could state in writing that in his professional opinion the whole job was a farce?

 

The saga would indeed make a good basis for a satirical radio play.

Might be an idea to send your account of "The story so far" to your local paper.

 

Silu whilst I have every sympathy,
Fife council did have bigger problems
Whilst your garden and eventually your basement was flooded, they were dealing with utter catastrophies as in Dura Den
My SIL is a fireman and he has spent the last thirty days, not pumping gardens, but
peoples sitting rooms under four feet of water, and when they had Fife under control were sent to outlying villages where whole streets of houses were under water

Nothing against yourself and Fife Council are fools, but there are priorities you probably can not see


Jack McH

 

Totally agree Jack re our problem not taking priority over the likes of the disaster at Dura Den which happened about 6 weeks BEFORE our problems started.We never expected to be at the "top of the list" BUT because the council took SO LONG to do anything of use the whole affair escalated and costs likewise. When our problem arose the weather was pretty benign and they didn't "stitch in time saves 9". I actually found out yesterday that if we hadn't created they'd pencilled us in for works to start on 21st January, that's 9 weeks after 1st reporting the problem. 9 weeks of no refuse collection, 9 weeks of making postie's and other delivery services, lives a misery, 9 weeks of having to take an 8 mile detour to Auchtermuchty which is where daughter works. Third world country or what?

 

So make a claim for what you know. As long as you specify what the claim's for, you can claim other damage seperately later.

 

Sorry to have to disagree, but I wouldn't do that (unless I was prepared to take some recompense and then cut my losses for the rest). If compensation is offered, there will be terms attached to acceptance of the offer. Almost certainly, right at the top of those terms will be that it is accepted as full and final settlement.

 

After a gargantuan battle with the council re what they thought was a suitable alternative to the old culvert and what we did, I am happy to inform you kind souls interested that we have EVENTUALLY got them to agree what they have already done is less than useless. I found via the net in about 5 mins a site which in black and white states exactly how many small pipes equal 1 big pipe with ref to diameter. Well the council thought 2 x 9 inch pipes were "even better" than what we previously had. In fact what they would have needed to lay were wait for it 11 x 9 inch pipes to equal what is upstream so not even close. They are now going to lay 2 x 18 inch pipes which will do the job. Snag...they don't have any in stock! resulting in our road now having been shut since approx 20th December and god knows when it will reopen. Looks like the WHOLE nonsense and HUGE waste of money (at least 5 workmen plus numerous managers have been here for 7 working days and achieved nothing of use). was because the Council had 9 inch pipes in stock and thought "they'll do". I wonder what the difference in cost between 9 inch and 18 inch pipes is? It will have to run into £1000s to equal all that has been spent so far. Beggars belief.

 

Only if they have a square cross section. If they are round, is it not 3.14159 (PI) times the capacity? 2*PI*R comes to mind, but I don't think that's exactly it.

 

The area of a circle is found by Pi x (radius squared).
A 9" pipe has an area of 63.62 square inches
A 18" pipe has an area of 254.47 square inches which is almost 4 times the area of an 8" pipe.