The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

34 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

I can hear the reasons for it - help the young families to stay on the island- support the local economy- attract more visitors etc. A get rich scheme by any other name and so what if a few ducks arnt able to nest. Always the way when it comes to wildlife I'm afraid. Keep up the pressure.

if it's anything like affordable housing around here, (yes even rural Shropshire needs it,) the developer promises X, then due to 'unforeseen costs', can only deliver Y.

 

I remember talking to an old guy from the council on the subject of council houses.

 

He told me that they used to be planned with big back gardens to enable the tenants to grow their own fruit and veg to help sustain them and boost their income.

 

Around the local area some of these gardens are best described as rubbish tips. The same goes for some front gardens.

 

You look at a modern 'Residents Association' house and it's a matchbox on a postage stamp.

 

My cynicism this morning knows no bounds!

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Tunisia / Libya / Egypt. I'd like to visit as My grandfather fought in the Western Desert Gallop, he was lucky in only being wounded and taken prisoner, many of his men didn't make it. He started WW2 as a CSM in Europe pre Dunkirk, but was RSM RTR by the time of capture at the second siege of Tobruk..

My Grandfather was in Tunisia in 1943, was wounded and captured.  He didn't really talk about his experiences until the 1980s when to get it off his chest I suppose, he wrote it all down.  I have those hand-written pages beside me, they are a wonderful description of the life of an ordinary soldier doing often extraordinary things.  He wrote very positively about the Germans he encountered in the military hospital (from where he was "liberated"); they were almost without exception professional, courteous and in some cases actually quite friendly towards him.  He was often much less enthusiastic about his own commanding officers...........  One day I might try and get these words published, with the agreement of the family.

 

re: Oradour Sur Glane; I have never been but know the story and have heard of big, hard, never-show-weakness men visit the site and walk around silently in tears; probably an even more powerful and poignant memorial than Auschwitz. 

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

My Grandfather was in Tunisia in 1943, was wounded and captured.  He didn't really talk about his experiences until the 1980s when to get it off his chest I suppose, he wrote it all down.  I have those hand-written pages beside me, they are a wonderful description of the life of an ordinary soldier doing often extraordinary things.  He wrote very positively about the Germans he encountered in the military hospital (from where he was "liberated"); they were almost without exception professional, courteous and in some cases actually quite friendly towards him. 

My late father in law was a Desert Rat and always spoke very highly of the conduct of the Germans in north Africa.  Comments that were echoed by a friend of my father who  had also served there.

 

I suspect that being a German Army operation without the encumbrance of the Waffen SS, and the other unsavoury elements of the Nazi war machine, enabled the soldiers to get on with good old fashioned fighting in accordance with the rules.

[Dave Hunt]

12 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

 I imagine you were quite happy to not be flying Starfighters

 

It's a sobering thought that when taken as a percentage of the aircraft in service, the RAF Lightning had a worse accident record than the Luftwaffe Starfighters. Even the Gnat trainer came close to it.

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

if it's anything like affordable housing around here, (yes even rural Shropshire needs it,) the developer promises X, then due to 'unforeseen costs', can only deliver Y.

 

I remember talking to an old guy from the council on the subject of council houses.

 

He told me that they used to be planned with big back gardens to enable the tenants to grow their own fruit and veg to help sustain them and boost their income.

 

Around the local area some of these gardens are best described as rubbish tips. The same goes for some front gardens.

 

You look at a modern 'Residents Association' house and it's a matchbox on a postage stamp.

 

My cynicism this morning knows no bounds!

 

That used to the way they did it many and I mean many years ago. Its why 'council' properties from that time and to far any really old properties are sort after so that they have room to build.

 

What really gets my goat are when developers build four/five bedroom properties on exactly the same amount of land they use for a three bedroom one. Its as if they ignore why people want the larger building - extra kids- cars etc. All in the name of greed.

[Northmoor]

7 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

That used to the way they did it many and I mean many years ago. Its why 'council' properties from that time and to far any really old properties are sort after so that they have room to build.

 

What really gets my goat are when developers build four/five bedroom properties on exactly the same amount of land they use for a three bedroom one. Its as if they ignore why people want the larger building - extra kids- cars etc. All in the name of greed.

Actually it has very little to do with developer greed and a great deal to do with government policy.

 

John Prescott, when DPM, introduced legislation specifying a minimum number of dwellings per hectare.  Nowhere in the legislation did it set a minimum standard of property in terms of room sizes etc., so most houses built in the last 20 years are tiny, with none of the storage space of older properties.  This has led to many of the awful characteristics of modern houses, like:

• No garages, blocks with maybe parking underneath or "allocated parking" - gee thanks, what a luxury;
• The ones that had special doors made for their garages, because they are actually too narrow for a BMW Mini (but the house is sold as having a garage, would you go and measure it before buying?); single bedrooms so short that standard single beds won't actually fit in (my house is from the 1970s and has this problem);
• Dividing walls of minimum thickness to maximise room width, but which transmit too much noise between dwellings;
• Tiny gardens that cannot really accommodate a small conservatory;
• And so on.

Growing up in Wales, every village (even one of perhaps 100 souls) had a row of 6-10 council houses; they were a good size (to be fair, they were built when land was cheap and not owned by people who expect to be paid to just own something), had space front and back and the vast majority were kept in immaculate condition, the tenants treated them as their own. 

 

The sell-off policy of the 1980s created a mindset that only the lowest-of-the-low lived in the remaining council housing, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy; the sort of "problem families" who trash their home then immediately blame the council for not redecorating it, become a growing proportion of council tenants.

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Stand at Tyne Cote cemetery and look back to the Canadian memorial at Vancouver Corner in the Ypres salient area, and realise that approximately 10,000 men still lie between the two with no known grave cuts right to your soul.

 

If one can have a favourite memorial, then mine is the Welsh Dragon facing Mametz Wood on the Somme.

 

 

 

The wood has grown back and has been left alone.

 

You can walk through it and find all manner of both spent and unexploded ordnance plus other wartime detritus. 

 

The fields surrounding the woods, when ploughed, still generate the 'iron harvest'.

 

 

You have to visit Tyne Cote to appreciate the horrendous loss of life. Something that should be on everyones bucket list.

[simontaylor484]

My last round on my council job was on a part of Castleford called Airedale it was originally a pit estate in the 1920s My paternal Grandma was born there and lived there her father was a miner at Fryston pit. The estate was extended over the years in a variety of housing types both standard construction and poured concrete Wimpey houses. Some had been bought thro ugh the right to buy. Some streets were ok but some were a sea of sh1t everyday even though it had been litter picked the day before

[simontaylor484]

2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

You have to visit Tyne Cote to appreciate the horrendous loss of life. Something that should be on everyones bucket list.

When we were kids we went to an American cemetery in East Anglia somewhere it was stunning I dont know how many were buried there but it was a lot. The rows of crosses and in some cases star of David's were immaculately presented and the rows perfectly lining up every direction.

Every High school child should be shown these cemeteries either in person or a  virtual walk round 

[jamie92208]

42 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

That used to the way they did it many and I mean many years ago. Its why 'council' properties from that time and to far any really old properties are sort after so that they have room to build.

 

What really gets my goat are when developers build four/five bedroom properties on exactly the same amount of land they use for a three bedroom one. Its as if they ignore why people want the larger building - extra kids- cars etc. All in the name of greed.

I believe that there was a set of standards called IIRCthe Parker Morris Standards.  I think that they werecadhered to into the 50's I remember remarking that council houses had much more space in them than Barratt houses in the 70's.

 

Jamie

[rockershovel]

43 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

That used to the way they did it many and I mean many years ago. Its why 'council' properties from that time and to far any really old properties are sort after so that they have room to build.

 

What really gets my goat are when developers build four/five bedroom properties on exactly the same amount of land they use for a three bedroom one. Its as if they ignore why people want the larger building - extra kids- cars etc. All in the name of greed.

Another serious limitation of "affordable housing" is that it is defined as a percentage of the local average. It is unrelated to local earnings, nor is there any constraint on its future resale price. Hence, much of it is bought and resold quickly and the price rises. 

[Winslow Boy]

13 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Actually it has very little to do with developer greed and a great deal to do with government policy.

 

John Prescott, when DPM, introduced legislation specifying a minimum number of dwellings per hectare.  Nowhere in the legislation did it set a minimum standard of property in terms of room sizes etc., so most houses built in the last 20 years are tiny, with none of the storage space of older properties.  This has led to many of the awful characteristics of modern houses, like:

• No garages, blocks with maybe parking underneath or "allocated parking" - gee thanks, what a luxury;
• The ones that had special doors made for their garages, because they are actually too narrow for a BMW Mini (but the house is sold as having a garage, would you go and measure it before buying?); single bedrooms so short that standard single beds won't actually fit in (my house is from the 1970s and has this problem);
• Dividing walls of minimum thickness to maximise room width, but which transmit too much noise between dwellings;
• Tiny gardens that cannot really accommodate a small conservatory;
• And so on.

Growing up in Wales, every village (even one of perhaps 100 souls) had a row of 6-10 council houses; they were a good size (to be fair, they were built when land was cheap and not owned by people who expect to be paid to just own something), had space front and back and the vast majority were kept in immaculate condition, the tenants treated them as their own. 

 

The sell-off policy of the 1980s created a mindset that only the lowest-of-the-low lived in the remaining council housing, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy; the sort of "problem families" who trash their home then immediately blame the council for not redecorating it, become a growing proportion of council tenants.

 

The lack of specifying a minimum requirement is far more common and quite an old problem. Neither is it restricted to private developers as there are quite a few unitary authorities who scimped on ensuring what they were building was suitable. When the  city of Salford expanded in the sixties quite a few of the estates they took on from the absorbed authorities were well below its standards and many millions was spent trying to bring them up to scratch - not that the inhabitants appreciated that at the time.

[rockershovel]

2 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

When we were kids we went to an American cemetery in East Anglia somewhere it was stunning I dont know how many were buried there but it was a lot. The rows of crosses and in some cases star of David's were immaculately presented and the rows perfectly lining up every direction.

Every High school child should be shown these cemeteries either in person or a  virtual walk round 

That would be Madingley, just on the outskirts of Cambridge 

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

My late father in law was a Desert Rat and always spoke very highly of the conduct of the Germans in north Africa.  Comments that were echoed by a friend of my father who  had also served there.

 

I suspect that being a German Army operation without the encumbrance of the Waffen SS, and the other unsavoury elements of the Nazi war machine, enabled the soldiers to get on with good old fashioned fighting in accordance with the rules.

I believe it was also related to the extreme hostility of the environment, in which isolated stragglers could not survive. 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

5 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

The lack of specifying a minimum requirement is far more common and quite an old problem. Neither is it restricted to private developers as there are quite a few unitary authorities who scimped on ensuring what they were building was suitable. When the  city of Salford expanded in the sixties quite a few of the estates they took on from the absorbed authorities were well below its standards and many millions was spent trying to bring them up to scratch - not that the inhabitants appreciated that at the time.

Things are quite tight for private developers in N Wales.

 

We are just finishing off the build of a 4 bedroomed house.

 

The insulation requirements are incredible.

 

The house had to be built with an integral fire suppression system (sprinklers).  Originally the local authority wanted this fed from a tank on the roof...Until it was pointed out that such a system may be a breeding ground for Legionnaire's Disease.

 

They also wanted an electric car charging point fitted.  Although the cabling is in, we argued that the type of charger fitted really depends on the type of car, which they accepted.   

 

Another specification was that there had to be as many off road parking spaces as there were bedrooms, and that did not include the garage.

 

Of course having fitted a brand new gas boiler and central heating system we are now being told by central government that gas boilers are to be phased out

 

A few years before we'd built another house and that one had needed to be fitted with a wood burner:  Within weeks of the build completion, wood burners suddenly became persona non grata.

 

Do central and local governments ever communicate with each other over building regulations and planning matters?  And if they do, do they take any notice of each other?

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

When I was looking for a property c. 1983 I looked over some new builds in Wennington. They were still being built and one look put me off. Firstly they were wooden framed with a brick skin for show. The floors were 4' X 8' sheets of chipboard that were installed before the interior walls which then just sat on the floor and were built across the joints in the flooring. My thoughts in that case were how do you access underfloor pipes and cables? I decided that they weren't not for me and I eventually bought an 1862 built cottage in Burnham-on-Crouch.

[SteveyDee68]

31 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I believe that there was a set of standards called IIRCthe Parker Morris Standards.  I think that they werecadhered to into the 50's I remember remarking that council houses had much more space in them than Barratt houses in the 70's.

 

Jamie

 

I worked on an academic report for the Rowntree Foundation back in the 1990s that examined housing design over the 80s/90s, and also how the incentives offered by builders to first time buyers meant many, many young families were caught in a property trap, where they had outgrown their initial first time buyer new build home but could not sell it to finance moving to a larger property because first time buyers (who ideally would buy their houses) were being given incentives to buy new build starter homes that meant it was cheaper to do that than to buy a house "second hand" with (of course) the increase in price added on by the original buyers in order to achieve the next step up the housing ladder!

 

The report was extremely damning about both the way property developers were targeting first time buyers and also for both the lack of garden/parking space (to maximise profits by squeezing more houses onto the same piece of land) and also the design of said starter homes, with inadequate size rooms, lack of storage space and poorly planned layouts all in the cause of maximising profits!

 

It was also forward thinking - it examined provision for waste bins, and noted how many new build homes (especially so called 'social housing') had no provision to get bins through to the rear of the property, and pointed out that in the future households would need more than one bin as recycling became normalised. (How right was that?! Three, four, even five bins in some places!)

 

The report also introduced me (as someone with an interest in architecture) to pedestrian flow analysis, which was applied in this report as to how families moved about in these starter homes. It revealed that just about every new house design examined paid absolutely no attention to the way the building would actually be used, which meant that for those living in them the houses quickly became irritating and consciously "cramped". When I later started looking to buy a house, just having been involved in the process of producing the report (I wasn't an author!) opened my eyes to house design; one thing I quickly noticed (and still holds true) - no house (unless self built or extremely expensive) is designed to be "perfect"! There is always something that isn't quite right, usually in the balance between "downstairs" living accommodation and "upstairs" sleeping accommodation. Why? Simple - so that the home owner subconsciously wants to "correct" that shortfall which is usally achieved by moving house, which perpetuates movement through the whole housing market! Who actually benefits? In order; land owners, property developers and (as always) banks.

 

The latest thing now is 'carbon neutral by 2050' and £5k towards installing ground pump heating systems. Will this work? Nope, because 85% (roughly) of housing stock in the UK it would be cheaper to demolish the existing buildings and start again from scratch than it would be to bring old building stock up to standard! Programmes like Grand Designs show 'eco friendly' builds, which usually cost far in excess of the 'standard' house being built today. Why? Well, the expertise to design them is in short supply, for one thing, together with the actual physical skills/knowledge/experience amongst builders! Nearly ten years ago I suggested - when the college I was working at was being rebuilt - that the Construction Department should invest in teaching how to build with new technologies and methods, and be at the forefront of providing skilled workers for the future. However, the SMT (like the government) had only a short term vision of training people to do the same old thing. Result? Well, today I was hearing about how there weren't anywhere near enough engineers with Ground Heat Pump experience to be able to meet the target set by the government! Result? Well, I guess there will be a lot of poorly installed systems as this next "gold rush" opportunity is grabbed at, like double glazing and cavity wall insulation in years gone by. Various individuals are going to do very well indeed out if this, thank you very much!

 

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, for example, they shake their heads in wonder at the way we go about things. Housing estate of 100 houses, each having a boiler, and now looking to install their own ground heat pump system? Where are the economies of scale?! They have, for years now, had heating generated centrally for housing and piped out for use by multiple households. Why have 100 small, relatively inefficient boilers when a single much more efficient heat source can service everybody?

 

I suppose it boils down to an insular, "an Englishman's home is his castle" type mentality over here. Plus, you wouldn't be able to list "GCH" on your house particulars when selling as a 'desirable feature' would you, when everybody else has access to exactly the same facilities?

 

Sorry. I don't quite know where this whole rant came from! But I do know that if we really wanted to become carbon neutral that we would have to think far more radically about housing in the UK, and in particular about the whole concept of house ownership (especially about private landlords!!!)

[simontaylor484]

Perhaps the answer may be more district heating systems like Steve suggests. There are some systems around I can think of using various sources including one using waste heat from the London Underground deep level and there is one in Sheffield generating heating and power from burning waste

[Northmoor]

43 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, for example, they shake their heads in wonder at the way we go about things. Housing estate of 100 houses, each having a boiler, and now looking to install their own ground heat pump system? Where are the economies of scale?! They have, for years now, had heating generated centrally for housing and piped out for use by multiple households. Why have 100 small, relatively inefficient boilers when a single much more efficient heat source can service everybody?

 

Can you imagine how many homes could have been heated by all the old coal-fired power stations in the Trent and Aire Valleys?

[Happy Hippo]

Excellent, Steve Excellent.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Things are quite tight for private developers in N Wales.

 

We are just finishing off the build of a 4 bedroomed house.

 

The insulation requirements are incredible.

 

The house had to be built with an integral fire suppression system (sprinklers).  Originally the local authority wanted this fed from a tank on the roof...Until it was pointed out that such a system may be a breeding ground for Legionnaire's Disease.

 

They also wanted an electric car charging point fitted.  Although the cabling is in, we argued that the type of charger fitted really depends on the type of car, which they accepted.   

 

Another specification was that there had to be as many off road parking spaces as there were bedrooms, and that did not include the garage.

 

Of course having fitted a brand new gas boiler and central heating system we are now being told by central government that gas boilers are to be phased out

 

A few years before we'd built another house and that one had needed to be fitted with a wood burner:  Within weeks of the build completion, wood burners suddenly became persona non grata.

 

Do central and local governments ever communicate with each other over building regulations and planning matters?  And if they do, do they take any notice of each other?

 

 

 

 

 

There is also a move (which has been around for some years now) that new houses have to be suitable for disabled occupants - Bear's Boss ran into that when buying a conversion (that was being converted with their input) near Aberdeen; since the kitchen wasn't disabled friendly (the existing building was split level) there had to be a second, small one that was.  Options were to (a) include a lift in the lounge, (b) a long ramp in the lounge, or (c) include a kitchen unit & sink in an existing small room just off the lounge.  He went for (c), unsurprisingly - with an instruction to the developer to fix it & plumb it with the bare minimum, cos' as soon as the BCO had signed the place off he'd be ripping it all out again...

A similar issue arose at a new build very close to Bear Towers - there had to be a ramp (about 15ft long) up to the front door; the builder must've mixed the concrete with about 5% cement (it was crumbly even before the place was finished) in order to make it very easy to smash to bits as soon as the place was signed off.

 

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Actually it has very little to do with developer greed and a great deal to do with government policy.

 

John Prescott, when DPM, introduced legislation specifying a minimum number of dwellings per hectare.  Nowhere in the legislation did it set a minimum standard of property in terms of room sizes etc., so most houses built in the last 20 years are tiny, with none of the storage space of older properties.  This has led to many of the awful characteristics of modern houses, like:

• No garages, blocks with maybe parking underneath or "allocated parking" - gee thanks, what a luxury;
• The ones that had special doors made for their garages, because they are actually too narrow for a BMW Mini (but the house is sold as having a garage, would you go and measure it before buying?); single bedrooms so short that standard single beds won't actually fit in (my house is from the 1970s and has this problem);
• Dividing walls of minimum thickness to maximise room width, but which transmit too much noise between dwellings;
• Tiny gardens that cannot really accommodate a small conservatory;
• And so on.

 

 

It's about time (= long overdue) that no new builds are allowed on green belt land - or land that used to be, but is strangely no longer thanks to shifty goings on.  Instead it should all be on brownfield sites.  And that most definitely is a rant.

[AndyID]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Things are quite tight for private developers in N Wales.

 

We are just finishing off the build of a 4 bedroomed house.

 

The insulation requirements are incredible.

 

The house had to be built with an integral fire suppression system (sprinklers).  Originally the local authority wanted this fed from a tank on the roof...Until it was pointed out that such a system may be a breeding ground for Legionnaire's Disease.

 

They also wanted an electric car charging point fitted.  Although the cabling is in, we argued that the type of charger fitted really depends on the type of car, which they accepted.   

 

Another specification was that there had to be as many off road parking spaces as there were bedrooms, and that did not include the garage.

 

Of course having fitted a brand new gas boiler and central heating system we are now being told by central government that gas boilers are to be phased out

 

A few years before we'd built another house and that one had needed to be fitted with a wood burner:  Within weeks of the build completion, wood burners suddenly became persona non grata.

 

Do central and local governments ever communicate with each other over building regulations and planning matters?  And if they do, do they take any notice of each other?

 

 

 

 

We had a house in California that had fire sprinklers built-in. It was required on houses that were on dead-end streets. The idea wasn't so much to protect the structure as to stop it setting the entire neighborhood on fire 

 

Another odd requirement was that the hot water taps were fed from a pumped circuit that was continuously circulating water from the gas fired water heater to prevent wasting water. The flaw in this logic was that the total lack of insulation on the pipes meant it was continuously wasting gas.

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

It's about time (= long overdue) that no new builds are allowed on green belt land - or land that used to be, but is strangely no longer thanks to shifty goings on.  Instead it should all be on brownfield sites.  And that most definitely is a rant.

No, THIS is a rant.

 

I agree with you, with the caveat that some areas which ARE green belt and shouldn't be, like golf courses.  The point of the green belt I always assumed, was to leave a gap in development that was an amenity for all, or at least a wildlife haven.  

Golf courses in England are frequently almost monocultures and some of the most elitist and discriminatory organisations still in existence with access restricted to the select few.  I would gladly see some low-cost housing built on a few of the excessive number of golf courses in this area.  A few personality-free corporate executives would have to find somewhere else to play, but never mind eh?

 

P.S.  I've actually played a little (bad) golf myself and quite enjoy the game, but I loathe the golf club culture, which I think is actually very damaging to the future of the game in the UK.

 

 

[SM42]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Another serious limitation of "affordable housing" is that it is defined as a percentage of the local average. It is unrelated to local earnings, nor is there any constraint on its future resale price. Hence, much of it is bought and resold quickly and the price rises. 

 

I recall reading somewhere that an affordable house is offered at 80% of market value

 

So an affordable house in Chelsea may be a priced at a million or 2.

 

Like all well meaning rules, it is used to maximum financial advantage by those who the supposed beneficiaries are being protected from.

 

A bit like the legal requirement for a minimum 2 hours free parking at motorway service stations. 

One minute over and it costs a fortune.

 

It's a minimum amount, not a target

 

Andy

Edited October 19, 2021 by SM42

[simontaylor484]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

There is also a move (which has been around for some years now) that new houses have to be suitable for disabled occupants - Bear's Boss ran into that when buying a conversion (that was being converted with their input) near Aberdeen; since the kitchen wasn't disabled friendly (the existing building was split level) there had to be a second, small one that was.  Options were to (a) include a lift in the lounge, (b) a long ramp in the lounge, or (c) include a kitchen unit & sink in an existing small room just off the lounge.  He went for (c), unsurprisingly - with an instruction to the developer to fix it & plumb it with the bare minimum, cos' as soon as the BCO had signed the place off he'd be ripping it all out again...

A similar issue arose at a new build very close to Bear Towers - there had to be a ramp (about 15ft long) up to the front door; the builder must've mixed the concrete with about 5% cement (it was crumbly even before the place was finished) in order to make it very easy to smash to bits as soon as the place was signed off.

 

 

It's about time (= long overdue) that no new builds are allowed on green belt land - or land that used to be, but is strangely no longer thanks to shifty goings on.  Instead it should all be on brownfield sites.  And that most definitely is a rant.

Our house was built in 2007 its a 3 storey townhouse the original kitchen was built to a slightly lower level for a disabled user it was a struggle to get the washing machine under the worktop.

  Also we have a downstairs toilet that is larger than normal which gives us a sharp 90° turn at the bottom of the stairs making it a complete and utter barsteward to get furniture up the stairs. Our sofa was a corner group and the removal men couldn't get it up the stairs me and my brother managed to get one half up the stairs the other went in through the French doors of the living room after removing the railings using a scaffolding tower I hired. In case you hadn't realized the living room is on the first floor.

  Another silly thing they had to do was put closers on doors that led to the staircase as a means of escape. The doors are heavy fire resistant doors with intumescent seals around. The doors were deadly for small children so I removed the closers and filled the holes