The 24K police shower room saga

[Steven Briggs]

Some of you may remember a thread a month or two back about the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire spending £24000 on a refurb of the en-suite shower room to her office.

Anyway, this evening a report into the issue has been released, and the author was being quizzed on Radio York. Original refurb of the 1970's shower room was budgeted at about 6K. Poor project management is being blamed for costs quadrupling, looks the like the Police Estates Dept will be carrying the can on this.

Sounds like of couple of ill-considered decisions were made without examining the implications.

1) Re-arrange the fittings the room - result soil stack had to be moved. 2) Specifying a mixer valve for the shower rather than the previous instantaneous electric one - result installation of a complete new hot water feed system. (To be fair, the CC had received an electric shock in the room apparently)

Couple of other unexpected things, removing some tiles revealed another layer of tiles, which had to be removed, which then required replastering - but it's a listed building so special plaster / techniques had to be used.

Well I'm going to ask if I can pop in a pee next time I'm passing - my council tax has paid for it!

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 19:30:57 +0000 someone who may be Steven Briggs wrote this:-

That's usually the case. The customer asks for something to be done, they are told it will be expensive, they say to do it all the same and then they duck when the costs of their actions come in.

Sounds possible, depending on the size of the room and the layout. An expensive change to the project.

Obviously. An expensive change to the project.

I hope they have taken adequate precautions against legionella.

So what? People are not being struck down every day by instantaneous electric showers.

I still don't see why she can't use the same showers as everyone else.

[ARWadsworth]

Not fatal unfortunatley.

Adam

[John Rumm]

I think you may be thinking of hit 'n' run motorists there...

[Steve Firth]

Ah yes, terrible unforseen circumstances, etc, etc.

But the same lot have also spent a fecking fortune on installing a sunshade in the garden which they could have purchased from the most expensive supplier in Europe for about 1/10th of the price.

look, it's the same Chief Constable posing in front of the errrm, thing.

I've been to the police headquarters in question, it's very nice. Peaceful, located near a top notch hotel and restaurant. Miles from anywhere.

The term "ivory tower" came to mind.

[Steven Briggs]

Erm, yeah, Thing. Its about all you _can_ say about it!

Indeed.

Its so good to see they're carefully spending all the money raised by doubling the Police precept a few years back (Checks council tax bills,

2002 +41.5%, 2003 +76.1%)

[Frank Erskine]

Presumably similar facilities are being provided at local police stations as well as "headquarters", so that all staff can benefit.

[Steve Firth]

Loads closed around here. We haven't had a copper in the village since the

1980s nearest police station was six miles away now that has closed. All the coppers in the nearest market town were removed from duty and within a few weeks the place saw a murder in the street and a series of bank/shop robberies.

The excuse given for taking coppers away was "there had been no significant crime in the area for a number of years." Well surprise, surprise, it looks like those coppers may well have been doing something after all.

Meanwhile spending on police headquarters goes on unabated, this being the place clever located next to a country park, in a magnificent country home with its own sports complex, restaurants etc. And all within easy reach of a nice harbour and marina with numerous upper crust restaurants. Of course the place is in a damned inconvenient location for access and for emergency access but it *is* handy for access to two large shopping complexes.

It's comforting to know that our money is being so well spent.

[rrh]

Hope you weren't "on business", as it were.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Perhaps she likes to get clean in a reasonable time?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Some time ago my car got damaged while parked and of course I had to report it for the 'crime number' or whatever. I drove more than 6 miles round London before finding a station I could do this at. Of course with an intimate knowledge of police stations I could have gone straight to the one which was open and isn't six miles away. But I made the mistake of trying to use ones I'd been to before.

[Steve Firth]

It's a national problem. You may recall my grumble about a fireman misusing the blue lights on his car to overtake me. I complained to the police about it, I wanted to complain at the nearest town (which I don't know well). This is a sizeable place and it has a police station which I had seen open. Indeed on the night in question it was open for business with cars arriving and departing. But the door was locked and the only facility for the public was a yellow telephone to one side of the door.

I went to the police station because the police tell me they don't take telephone complaints seriously, only complaints made in person.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Steve Firth saying something like:

really. The canopy is nothing more than a bit of tarp, a few poles and some guy wire - about 300quid max I would think.

Of course, the designer/architect's fees on top - that would really inflate it.

[Tony Williams]

In article ,

After the high winds of the last week or so it may not be there any longer. :)

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Steve Firth writes

How stupid, surely having police on the beat only bumps up the crime figures as they keep on arresting people and having to record the fact. Much better to have no police on the beat and no method of reporting crime, then the figures would look brilliant, 100% drop in reported crime and 100% drop in arrests!

[Steve Firth]

Not that there should be any such fee, because the shade is a standard off-the-peg item. In fact that particular one looks like a real rip-off, the ones I'm used to seeing are much larger, generally mounted on 14ft poles. Like these:

[Andy Hall]

in the Yorkshire scene.

[Steve Firth]

Nope, and the CC would have to explain the price difference between about £1400 and the actual cost, which isn't stated but I think we can guarantee it will be more than £7500.

Signs of North Yorks Plod financial mismanagement are that they really don't know what a job is going to cost. Something like this and the shower should be fixed price quotes, there should be no ambiguity.

I'd like to know how long that deck lasts at Newby Wiske. I'll be astounded if it lasts longer than a couple of seasons. What was wrong, I wonder, with using yorkstone?