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A “TEMPORARY” eyesore blighting a city street has become semi-permanent because utility bosses cannot find the rare stone needed to finish the job.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Anger as ‘temporary’ Castle Street patch-up to stay"
(23 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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I bet the Scottish Power guys had a good laugh when they came up with "rare granite" as an excuse for not sorting this out. Still - nice to see the Council actually pursuing a utility company over terrible reinstatement for once. Hopefully the start of some crackdown on poor quality utility work - which appears to be the industry standard.
Posted 9 years ago # -
They were doing works in Jane Street (I think that's what it's called, just off Leith Walk where the community bakery is) and it was just one guy picking out setts as far as I could tell. He had a good pile but they were all in good condition.
It seems obvious when you're laying these things that they will have to be removed and re-set (hehe) at some point. Is the implication in the article that they were installed to make impossible to remove without destroying them?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Discussion from the SP boardroom:
A) A perfect match doesn't exist. That's not surprising, even rock from the same quarry wouldn't necessarily match.
B) How about any other cut of granite? It will look far better than tarmac.
A) Nah the council are toothless, we'll just tell them to poke it and they can't do anything anyway.
Posted 9 years ago # -
a) "This supplier list says <country with poor labour laws> Gneiss is only 5p/ton."
b) "But the street's spec says Scottish granite which costs £500/ton. Guess there must be less of it to make it so expensive."
a) "Yeah pretty rare stuff."
b) Ambles off to tell the council they can't source itPosted 9 years ago # -
I'm fairly certain I remember seeing the start of these ScottishPower works, and it involved hi-vized vandals taking a circular saw to the setts, effectively destroying every second one. I thought at the time that it seemed an unwise idea, and hardly a surprise then that they ended up with substantially fewer to relay than were required. SP deserve to have the book thrown at them - or at least paying whatever is required to fix it. They broke it, they fix it.
On the praise side, the recent SGN works in Rose St nr Charlotte Sq saw the brick paving relayed very well (so far - guess I should wait a few months for settlement to occur). I was suspicious a tarmac machine would be involved here too.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Usually with EEN there is hyperbole? Fury at setts debacle would be better.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Temporary setts cobbled together."
Posted 9 years ago # -
ENews (partly) blames the council -
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Given the propensity of utility and telecoms companies to dig up road surfaces – often within weeks of resurfacing – did the city council not consider it sensible to keep a replacement supply of setts for this most predictable event? If the setts are of a highly specialist kind, was not the issue of future replacement considered when they were first ordered in the first place?
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Posted 9 years ago # -
"Council and ScottishPower have a sett to"
Posted 9 years ago # -
Paging Tulyar. Tulyar to the beautiful Victorian polished granite courtesy telephone please.
I suspect part of the reason for the shambles is that relaying setts is time consuming, and to do it properly, expensive as well because you have to get a special person who knows how to do it, and tell you what materials you need to buy and how to lay them.
The level of disrespect shown by the contractor who relaid the setts at the western end of Warrender Park Road is just mind boggling.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@Arellcat
Agree about the most recently relaid part of Warrender Pk Rd. outside the entrance to the school staff car park*
However, most of Warrender Pk Rd seems to have been laid with large gaps between the setts and concrete filler in between (I don't think this is the traditional method). There are only a few short sections that (still?) have the sets closely packed with no filler.
Previous wrong-doings of the road having been completely relaid??
*This is actually supposed to be playground.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I can't find a reference but this isn't the first time Castle street has suffered tarmac blight.
Within a year or two of being completed there was a black stripe the length of most of the street which remained well past it's welcome as a temporary repair but I'm sure was eventually patched. I'm not a regular visitor to the centre of town any more so can't comment if the new section is the same as the old one.
Of course within hours of opening the motor bullies were already busy bulldozing most of the bollards and abusing the fact the council had thought they might be able to enforce parking without painting lines all over the street.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Restricted Parking Zones allow traffic wardens to ticket for exactly that - parking in an unlined area with far more discrete signage than CPZ which dictates some form of line must be on every road edge.
Preventing access in the first place is almost always the most effective method of removing vehicles, though.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Cycling on cobbles needs a Pashley or similar else too bumpy and can be slippy. I prefer tarmac
Posted 9 years ago # -
I am not a fan of cobbles/setts - would love to cycle down Warrender Park road from Brunstfield, but I am too attached to my amalgam fillings.
I am also unsure why certain streets are deemed appropriate to spend a fortune renewing them (poorly in the case of Warrender), while other streets nearby (Marchmont Crescent for example) just have a fresh layer of tarmac poured over the top for the buses to destroy??
Posted 9 years ago # -
There's currently a long process going on of re-laying setts on SE Circus Place - it's a big job. I'm not qualified to know whether it's being done right or not though - has anyone here seen it?
Posted 9 years ago # -
It's time we, and Edinburgh, accepted that there is no longer the money, skill, and commitment to maintain all the setts to an acceptable standard. I would define a small historical central area (with possibly The Shore in Leith included) that would retain properly maintained setts, and grub up the remaining setts and lay good quality tarmac.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Can't they invent a machine that will lay setts (properly with no filler)?
They have ones that'll do Tarmac after all and it isn't rocket science.
Machine comes and lays a nice base foundation of whatever material, packs it down, then drops the setts neatly on top. Can't be that hard...
Posted 9 years ago # -
@eddie_h
something a bit like http://www.naden.de/blog/bbvideo-bbpress-video-plugin -->
[+] Embed the video | this, you mean?" target="_blank">Video Download Get the Video Widget Posted 9 years ago # -
@TheBoy
*sob*
We can only dream.
They had four attempts at relaying that bit outside the school gates of JG. Four. The same guys each time. Same guys who did the work on the stone wall alongside the footway, which obviously qualified them for laying a roadway too.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Wow a lot of hate for the old setts. We had setts, flagstone pavements and trees in our street a hundred years ago. Since then it's been tarmaced, the trees cut down and the flagsstones removed. The increased height of the road surface means the entire street looks too low. The pavement is so much lower than the roadway that a raised kerb had to be installed to stop rainwater destroying the stonework (far too late sadly). Add parked cars up both sides and the result is a painful reminder of just how much we have destroyed our urban environment for the sake of cars.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The stone wasn't prohibitively rare or expensive 5/10 years ago when Castle Street was re-laid...
Posted 9 years ago #
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