As any student of English history will know the original Parliament buildings burnt down in the 19th Century, apart from Westminster Hall which mercifully was spared.
Today a fire alarm sounded in the mid-afternoon. This time not the usual mournful voice advising us over the speaker system to await further news or a test alarm but the real thing. We were told to ‘leave the building immediately’ which I and my assistant working quietly in our office did. We all had to assemble in a courtyard to the west of the main buildings. The first thing that struck me was the huge amount of people that poured out, more than 300, despite the fact that it is still recess.
Anyhow great excitement and several fire engines, with lots of people getting themselves photgraphed beside them. After half an hour we all trooped back only to find that the ‘fire’ was a faulty electric light fittting in a ladies cloakroom which emitted some smoke and triggered the alarm. Great anti-climax but at least the fire procedures and evacutation of the building proved highly effective.
The Parliament building as with any old edifice is grand on the surface but underneath it is more a matter of shreds and patches of maintenance work over the centuries. I have seen pictures of the plumbing and wiring works in the basement and plan a trip to see the installations at first hand. We have been told that the risk of fire is very high – not at all surprising when you see the kind of additions to the original infrastructure.
The cost of renewing the wiring is prohibitive, several millions over the next decade or so. This expenditure will have to be agreed by the Administration and Works Committee and ultimately by the House Committee both of which I sit on. When the costs become public no doubt there will be discontent in the press – but the work HAS to be done. Today luckily no great harm was done, but it could have been much, much worse.
No sensible press should be able to begrudge a few millions for
upgrading and servicing the seat of our democracy to current specs. I
think the public ire is generally raised when debacles like the
Scottish Parliament Building occur which lead to the perception that the toilet taps are being gold plated.
You were fortunate that it was not raining. This sort of thing has happened to me on a number of occasions, in hotels and usually in the early hours of the morning when its cold and raining.
The most difficult situations are when the alarm is intermittent. Should you stay in your room or go outside? The official line is to always vacate but human nature is what it is and people often, quite wrongly, stay in their rooms.
As Parliament is a national treasure it would be nice to see it wired throughout in mineral-insulated copper-clad cable or Pyrotenax. It is mandatory for fire alarm systems to be wired this way but commercial buildings for cost reasons use fire retarded thermoplastic-coated materials as insulators however a lot do use PVC, which is flammable.
Mentioning electricity made me think of the many blackouts or brownouts we must endure in the near future because of a generating capacity shortfall. You may not be aware of this but we import electricity from the continent using the HVDC Cross-Channel connection, which is currently being upgraded.
What I find very bizarre is why as a nation we have not converted to the same supply voltages, plugs and sockets used on the continent. Simply stated these are 380 volts three phase and 220 volts single phase; here we use 415 volt three phase and 240-volt single phase. In essence the continental grid system differs from ours.
As we are the lesser grid system it does seem unfortunate that we are unable to interface directly with a continental grid system of much higher capacity. Surely it would be cheaper for us to convert ours than spend billions on new generating capacity?
Is it all a case of which side of the road the Tories drive on?
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral-insulated_copper-clad_cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel
Alex Bennee – I suppose your response begs the question what or where is a sensible press? Despite many efforts from the information department of the House to brief the media on exactly what is going on and what the costs cover, there appears to be a vested interest in portraying the HoL as a place of untold privilege, exclusivity,and as arcane and irrelevant. I think this is untrue and part of the purpose of blogging is to inform a wider (and interested) public on what actually goes on.
Sennex – in the face of such technical expertise I am pretty dumbstruck! I wonder if you’d mind if I passed your suggestions on to the team which is planning the entire rewiring of Parliament? In fact perhaps the Cabinet ought to have sight of your message.
Let us know what your profession is or is the knowledge above merely a hobby?