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Plans to end cone tradition on Glasgow's Wellington statue 'to be withdrawn'

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  1. Focus
    Member

    Not cycling-related but it does give an example of why councils are strapped for cash.

    Plans to end cone tradition on Glasgow's Wellington statue 'to be withdrawn'

    "The council had said that raising the height would end a practice which projected a "depressing image" of Glasgow and would save the £10,000 cost of removing the cone 100 times a year.[i]

    So, it costs £100 to remove a cone? £100! A long pole with a hook on it would do the job, and yet Glasgow council needs to spend £100 to do what? Send a team of people to erect barriers and guard the site? What on earth is costing so much for a job one person with a big stick could easily and safely do?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. custard
    Member

    there's the rub no doubt
    'safely'
    I bet knocking the cone off wouldnt pass a risk assessment or whatever they do

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. Focus
    Member

    I have little doubt it's all about the risk assessment. But then I'm not even talking about knocking it off, simply hooking inside the top of the cone and lifting it off.

    Oh, I'm sorry, of course the hook would present some sort of nasty freak impalement injury risk for the worker involved. How stupid of me!

    Tell you what, I'll do it, with the method I proposed, for £50 plus the cost of a return train fare. In fact, on a nice day I might even do it for the one-way fare and cycle home :-)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. gembo
    Member

    They could just leave the cone on as a permanent part of the culture. Even if it presents an image the council doesn't like, the citizens seem to? On lots of postcards, someone always puts it back after it is taken down

    Technically this would not then save them £10000 as they will still be paying the parks dept salaries, they will just have to cut the grass in the rain more.

    Are they still breaking Donald dewar's glasses too?

    I like the cycle back along the canal if wind from west and there has been a prolonged drought to dry out the path

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. wee folding bike
    Member

    I'm more interested in what the council were actually up to while everybody was looking at the cone.

    It has the appearance of a classic squirrel manoeuvre.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. EddieD
    Member

    People like dressing up statues - we always used to put scarves on James Watt when he was outside HWU on Chambers Street - and I'm not going to say what was done to the nymph fountain on campus. The Gormleys in the WOL were also dressed up, people thought that they looked cold.

    It does seem an excessive cost for sending someone with a stepladder to retrieve the cone, good old government pricing.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. AKen
    Member

    £100 is a suspiciously round figure. I imagine the real cost is rather different and everything including depreciation on the ladder has been factored in but, if the cooncil man is up a ladder removing cones then he can't be up a ladder fixing someone's lights - which is probably more to the point.

    Why don't they just glue the cone on?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. kaputnik
    Moderator

    £65,000 to "save" £10,000 a year is just the sort of daft decisions council accountants come up with to "save money".

    I also was somewhat amused by the idea that if the plinth is currently a hazard in case anyone falls off that by raising it another 3 feet it becomes less likely to hurt anyone falling off it.

    Wellington without a cone is like the statue of Thomas Guthrie without a cap of guano.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. cb
    Member

    The cone removal plans have been dropped after a "massive social nedia campaign" (they're referring to this thread, right?)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-24907190

    On Twitter Greg Hemphill said, "Cony No Dae That."

    See what he did there?

    Posted 11 years ago #

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