Cut-backs begin to bite

[mph1977]

RedLeicester said:

crankedup said:

The various former public agencies are now privately run, they will only carry out obligations within contracts. Our own situation was not covered within any agency contract. The water courses would have been under the legislative regulation of the river authorities, they were disbanded and now those water courses fall into the management of anyone who happens to have an open or piped watercourse adjacent to or on their property.

Since when have the fire service been privatised? I must have missed that memo.

Private watercourses have always been the responsibility of the land owner.

and charges for none life + limb work by the fire service have been in place for many years ... the fact the fire service can offer this on demand demonstrates the relative lack of work they have ; as chargeable use of Police and NHS ambulance resources has to be booked and planned weeks if not months ahead.

The fire service has a primary purpose of saving life and limb, fire fighting which isn;t directly to save life or limb is to reduce the risk of injury to others . theire rescue services again are about saving life or limb.

In terms of animal rescue the attitude depends rather on the nature of the rescue the risk to people who aren't trained and equipped to undertake the rescue - they don;lt turn out for cats up trees anymore although they may well turn out for livestock trapped in ditches / deep mud ...

Edited by mph1977 on Saturday 16th March 16:18

[crankedup]

I will take it that none of those posters who so enjoy getting onto their high horses can offer any meaningful replies to my questions. Other than one who suggests they can charge if they so wish to rescue animals. This of course never happens as it would be impossible to facilitate a charge unless the owner of the animal agreed prior to that animal rescue.
And what of the car fire scenario, MOST of you lot seemed to have crawled back into your holes rather than reply to simple questions. Risk to life accepted reason for fire service action.

[mph1977]

sunbeam alpine said:

crankedup said:

When I tell you that a gully pump sucked up 70,000 gallons over a 12 hour period and it made little impact I hope that gives some perspective.

That's an impressive pump. Are you sure about that volume?

70,000 / (12 *60) = 70 000 /720 = 97.2 gallons per minute or 440 ish litres per minute ( assuming 4.5 litres/ to the UK gallon)

given a portable pump like this can deliver up to 700 lpm ...

http://www.seddondirect.co.uk/productDetails.asp?p...

[toppstuff]

The OP still hasn't explained how a domestic issue with a poor neighbour and an excess of rain is turned into a polemic attacking the government..

It's utterly bizarre and revealing of a rather strange mindset IMO.

If the thread was headed "problem neighbour" or " I hate rain" it would be a story that many would sympathise with.

But to effectively make a political point out of it is comically, absurdly, hopelessly stupid and irrelevant.

Not even Ben Elton would have done this in the height of the 80's ( before he became a multi millionaire author..)

Rather strange.

Edited by toppstuff on Saturday 16th March 16:18

[mph1977]

toppstuff said:

The OP still hasn't explained how a domestic issue with a poor neighbour and an excess of rain is turned into a polemic attacking the government..

It's utterly bizarre and revealing of a rather strange mindset IMO.

If the thread was headed "problem neighbour" or " I hate rain" it would be a story that many would sympathise with.

But to effectively make a political point out of it is comically, absurdly, hopelessly stupid and irrelevant.

Not even Ben Elton would have done this in the height of the 80's ( before he became a multi millionaire author..)

Rather strange.

Edited by toppstuff on Saturday 16th March 16:18

because the OP seems to think the Fire and Rescue Service is there to provide him with a free at the point of use pumping service where there is no risk to health or welfare ...

Ditto with the stuff aobut the council - the highways dept. acted to protect a throughfare and provided Sand bags ( which if there were wider spread flooding would be prioritised to residential premises at greatest risk but not yet flooded and critical infrastruture )

[crankedup]

toppstuff said:

The OP still hasn't explained how a domestic issue with a poor neighbour and an excess of rain is turned into a polemic attacking the government..

It's utterly bizarre and revealing of a rather strange mindset IMO.

I thought it was clear enough. The Government continue to cut Public Services, this has been an ongoing situation since 1973, as I mentioned earlier. These cut backs are affecting front line services, we will all continue to see services which were once available at point of delivery no longer available or these services will be charged for at point of delivery, as I found out.
Now I disagree with SOME of the cuts being chosen to front line services, in my case I was to find that no public service was available free at point of delivery. Can I suggest you read back over my posts, you will find that I did not EXPECT free service, I simply hoped some practical assistance was available. I can tell you that help in the same scenario that I faced would have been available thirty years back, fortunately I have not required assistance of the kind since those days.

[crankedup]

mph1977 said:

toppstuff said:

The OP still hasn't explained how a domestic issue with a poor neighbour and an excess of rain is turned into a polemic attacking the government..

It's utterly bizarre and revealing of a rather strange mindset IMO.

If the thread was headed "problem neighbour" or " I hate rain" it would be a story that many would sympathise with.

But to effectively make a political point out of it is comically, absurdly, hopelessly stupid and irrelevant.

Not even Ben Elton would have done this in the height of the 80's ( before he became a multi millionaire author..)

Rather strange.

Edited by toppstuff on Saturday 16th March 16:18

because the OP seems to think the Fire and Rescue Service is there to provide him with a free at the point of use pumping service where there is no risk to health or welfare ...

Ditto with the stuff aobut the council - the highways dept. acted to protect a throughfare and provided Sand bags ( which if there were wider spread flooding would be prioritised to residential premises at greatest risk but not yet flooded and critical infrastruture )

Well you keep groaning on about it, but I accepted the fact last Sunday night when I was advised as such. I merely asked for opinions but am faced with a backlash. Apparently I am a leftie who wants something for nothing. Usual twaddle from overinflated egoistic people, usual suspects of course. Carry on if you find it inflates your warped sense of ego.

[toppstuff]

crankedup said:

I thought it was clear enough.

Well, it IS clear that you have an expectation that public services should step in and help you even though your life and property is not in direct immediate danger.

What is not clear is how you come to have such a strange perspective.

Let me give you a real example - my home has overland power cables and BT cables via telegraph poles which go across the fields, Where the power lines cross over hedges and a area of rough ground, trees had grown to the extent they were touching the cables. In a storm , they could bring the power cable down.

Now I could have :

A) looked into if the power company would trim the trees, Turns out they could, but they can't say when they could do it.

B) expected public services to do it

C) do it myself

D) decide that the growth of the trees and the tardy nature of the response from the power company is all Gordon Brown's fault, because of his legacy of overspending and bumping up the national debt from 44% of GDP to 64% while he was PM, and generally rant at how appalling it is....

I chose C.

[mph1977]

whoami said:

crankedup said:

iBad feelings living here now and so we are selling up.

Once you've found a new place, why not give the ambulance service a call to help with your removal?

though that seems to be aobut the same level of thinking as the OP

[McWigglebum4th]

crankedup said:

Well you keep groaning on about it, but I accepted the fact last Sunday night when I was advised as such. I merely asked for opinions but am faced with a backlash. Apparently I am a leftie who wants something for nothing. Usual twaddle from overinflated egoistic people, usual suspects of course. Carry on if you find it inflates your warped sense of ego.

Oh in the name of all that is fking holey where the fk should we draw the fking line at what the fire brigade should and shouldn't fking do

My grass needs cutting shall i reach for 999?

You fking answer as your the one that fking started this whole ball rolling


And breath

[toppstuff]

crankedup said:

I hope this thread will take on a wider debate

Well that went well.

In summary:

OP wants the state to help him out even if he is not in immediate risk.

Everyone else seems to think its their own problem to sort out.

I think he may be better posting this on The Guardian CIF forum...

[sunbeam alpine]

mph1977 said:

sunbeam alpine said:

crankedup said:

When I tell you that a gully pump sucked up 70,000 gallons over a 12 hour period and it made little impact I hope that gives some perspective.

That's an impressive pump. Are you sure about that volume?

70,000 / (12 *60) = 70 000 /720 = 97.2 gallons per minute or 440 ish litres per minute ( assuming 4.5 litres/ to the UK gallon)

given a portable pump like this can deliver up to 700 lpm ...

http://www.seddondirect.co.uk/productDetails.asp?p...

You may have missed my later post where I admitted I'd made a mistake while converting gallons to liters

OP - you're not covering yourself in glory by continually posting increasingly sillier questions/comments.

In answer to your specific questions - a car fire is an IMMEDIATE danger to (possibly) life and/or property, and of course the fire brigade should respond immediately.

The horse may have been chipped and the owner could therefore be traced and billed.

FYI about 20 years ago I dropped all the hydraulic fluid out of a combine harvester on the main road just outside of Oxford (hydraulic lead broke). Fire brigade were called as it was all over the road. Cost me about £250 if I remember correctly - so even that long ago they were charging.

I also note (if I've understood another poster correctly) that you had been aware of the possible problem for some time?

[aw51 121565]

toppstuff said:

Well that went well.

In summary:

OP wants the state to help him out even if he is not in immediate risk.

Everyone else seems to think its their own problem to sort out.

I think he may be better posting this on The Guardian CIF forum...

You omitted to mention that the public agencies are now privately run. Or most of them are.

A chap in Lancashire reckoned his local police constabulary was a privately-run company with a public-facing splinter company with which the public engaged.

How many grassy knolls, again???

[scdan4]

crankedup said:

I know it all sounds simple, believe me it wasn't. I spent two days trying to clear my neighbours blocked drain pipe. His drain runs underneath his garage and part of his house. These people refused to acknowledge the pipe was partially blocked. In hindsight I should have taken firmer action beforehand and I regret not doing so. In the interest of good quite neighbourly living conditions I kept to quite about it in the past. I hadn't realized that public service assistance in a practical way was unavailable, I know now!

crankedup said:

........................
We did manage to rod out the blockage, or at least my next door neighbours pal managed to rod the blockage. My next door neighbour was also affected and had been affected, now and again, for twenty years apparently. Its been a lesson in life for us, and we are pensioners but still learning, if we have the slightest problem with drainage in future good neighbours are irrelevant from now on.

If it only needed rodding, (even a vigorous one), what on earth were you doing for 2 days?

[MOTORVATOR]

crankedup said:

I will take it that none of those posters who so enjoy getting onto their high horses can offer any meaningful replies to my questions. Other than one who suggests they can charge if they so wish to rescue animals. This of course never happens as it would be impossible to facilitate a charge unless the owner of the animal agreed prior to that animal rescue.
And what of the car fire scenario, MOST of you lot seemed to have crawled back into your holes rather than reply to simple questions. Risk to life accepted reason for fire service action.

Sticking with your questions I think even the car on your drive scenario could well be chargeable. I must admit to not being totally up to speed on the legalities but if it was proved a criminal act to set it on fire then they could quite rightly go after the offender and I imagine if you were to set light to it yourself in some sort of insurance scam then again I think you might see a charge.

It is similar to say a council charging you for replacing the lamp column you knocked down while driving like a tt.

Morally I'm sure you can see all of the above scenarios are quite correct regardless of what colour tie you wear.

Thinking about it deeper the only emergency service I can think of that wouldn't charge for it's work would maybe be the RNLI or other service run from charitable donation. I'm not sure how I feel about that really as they wouldn't want you to not make the call in fear of salvage rights but some people are pretty thick when it comes to making a donation after having their pride and joy saved yet alone their lives.