Railings for Marple aqueduct - whats next?

[furnessvale]

8 hours ago, Alway Swilby said:

Well..... erm...... yes, actually. That's why the health and safety people want to put the railings up.

True, but no one has fallen from Marple aqueduct unless they have first climbed over the towpath parapet wall (not being altered by this work), or climbed over the fence at either end of the offside, or jumped or swum across the 8ft canal width.

Darwin should rule.

George

[dor]

Quote

This design was very well received, and gained wide-ranging praise from the many stakeholders involved in the project.

None of whom no doubt had to pay for it.  I shudder to think how much these railings have cost compared to more conventional railings.  And as for the warp and weft nonsense,  I bet they would have to explain that pretentious nonsense to everybody because I'm sure as hell no one would see that interpretation just by looking at it.

What a staggering waste of money from a supposedly cash-strapped organisation.  I wonder what the final cost is with all the 'design' and meetings and back-slapping, let alone the actual cost of the fabrication.

[billh]

14 minutes ago, dor said:

What a staggering waste of money from a supposedly cash-strapped organisation.  I wonder what the final cost is with all the 'design' and meetings and back-slapping, let alone the actual cost of the fabrication.

And installation: temporary safety scaffolding/fence on the outside of the permanent fence line, hired in boats to bring the fence in , specialist abseiling contractors ( used before at this location for repair work on the aqueduct) to put the temporary fence in, etc etc.

Sounds to me like somebody's career enhancing pet  project to be seen through to completion at any cost and looking good on a CV. 

 

[magpie patrick]

15 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

From this link......

The new parapet railing was designed with the historic significance of the Aqueduct in mind, and rather than applying something ‘off-the-shelf’, a bespoke solution was required. In close collaboration with Knight Architects, we based our design on the loop pattern of ‘cotton weaving’, which acknowledges Samuel Oldknow’s historic Mellor cotton mill in Marple and the use of the Peak Forest Canal for transporting the cotton he produced.

Each vertical rail is ‘woven’ between the two low-level rails and the top rail, as a single self-intersecting ‘thread’. These vertical elements form the ‘warp’, and the horizontal rails form the ‘weft’. This design was very well received, and gained wide-ranging praise from the many stakeholders involved in the project. Both Scheduled Monument Consent from Historic England and Planning Permission from Stockport Council were granted in June 2017.

Sorry but they just look pig ugly to me.......

 

 

This can be the problem when you let "experts" play with things, and please when I make that comment bear in mind that I am one of those involved in waterway heritage.

They have gone mad: what was needed was a substantial but elegant rail that is in keeping with the architecture of the aqueduct, instead we get something that makes "historic references" and at the same time looks a bit of a mess.

[magpie patrick]

9 hours ago, Alway Swilby said:

Well..... erm...... yes, actually. That's why the health and safety people want to put the railings up.

Well, my friend from school David Marsden fell off, and was found in the river about 3 weeks later. That was in 1982 so it took them a while to get round to doing something about it.

I'm not in favour of the railings btw

[billh]

15 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

From this link......

The new parapet railing was designed with the historic significance of the Aqueduct in mind, and rather than applying something ‘off-the-shelf’, a bespoke solution was required. In close collaboration with Knight Architects, we based our design on the loop pattern of ‘cotton weaving’, which acknowledges Samuel Oldknow’s historic Mellor cotton mill in Marple and the use of the Peak Forest Canal for transporting the cotton he produced.

 

The Peak Forest Canal was about moving stone from the Peak District , by 1801, a thousand tons per DAY were passing down the Peak Forest railway at Marple (before the locks were built) . Cotton products were a very minor traffic in Oldknow's time.

16 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

Well, my friend from school David Marsden fell off, and was found in the river about 3 weeks later. That was in 1982 so it took them a while to get round to doing something about it.

I'm not in favour of the railings btw

Is it known which side David Marsden fell off?

[mayalld]

27 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

They have gone mad: what was needed was a substantial but elegant rail that is in keeping with the architecture of the aqueduct, instead we get something that makes "historic references" and at the same time looks a bit of a mess.

What was actually needed was to bin this nonsense.

There is an obsession with protecting people from their own stupidity, and an apparent belief that we can make the world safe.

The truth is that the vanishingly small number of people who would come to grief doing something stupid here will still find a way to remove themselves from the gene pool doing something else.

Kids sometimes do stupid things, and some of them tragically die. When it happens, it hurts their family, it hurts their friends, and it hurts those who have to deal with the aftermath. Our natural instinct is to do something that will prevent the same accident happening again, but we can never manage that.

The end result may be that different people die, but people will still die.

 

[Machpoint005]

1 hour ago, mayalld said:

vanishingly small number of people who would come to grief

...and the fewer there are, the more it costs to protect them, and the less the likely success!

[ditchcrawler]

There was bit of an outcry when the railings were installed at Worcester Bar to stop people jumping the narrows, but they look 100 times better than what these do and about half the price to make in my opinion.

[Phil.]

18 hours ago, billh said:

Good weigh in value for stainless steel bike racks

Cordless angle grinder anyone?

Well at 1k per tonne scrap value I suppose it will only be a matter of time before some enterprising toe rag has them away.

[1st ade]

6 hours ago, billh said:

The Peak Forest Canal was about moving stone from the Peak District , by 1801, a thousand tons per DAY were passing down the Peak Forest railway at Marple (before the locks were built)

So, a stone wall (like wot is already on the towpath side) would not have been inappropriate then? Assuming that an safety barrier is required at all...

[thebfg]

6 hours ago, 1st ade said:

So, a stone wall (like wot is already on the towpath side) would not have been inappropriate then? Assuming that an safety barrier is required at all...

I wondered this with the price of design  build and install I suspect a local stone worker could have done a good job of replicating the other side.

Edited December 21, 2017 by thebfg

[Pluto]

22 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

This can be the problem when you let "experts" play with things, and please when I make that comment bear in mind that I am one of those involved in waterway heritage.

They have gone mad: what was needed was a substantial but elegant rail that is in keeping with the architecture of the aqueduct, instead we get something that makes "historic references" and at the same time looks a bit of a mess.

They only think they are experts because they have a little bit of paper that tells them so, rather than expertise built up from years of experience. It is unfortunate that we have a society that values academic qualifications over practical experience. They need to be valued equally, though with the way things operate today, few have enough time in one business to gain a sufficient level of expertise.

[rupertbear]

It probably depends on the exact nature of the metal but I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't sing nicely in the wind..

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, Pluto said:

They only think they are experts because they have a little bit of paper that tells them so, rather than expertise built up from years of experience.

That's a little unfair -- "they" may well have both paper qualifications and practical experience.

"They" may also know more about the big picture here than you or I. I don't like the railings either, though.

[Jerra]

9 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

That's a little unfair -- "they" may well have both paper qualifications and practical experience.

"They" may also know more about the big picture here than you or I. I don't like the railings either, though.

I was going to give a greenie for this until the last sentence.   It would appear I am alone in liking them.

[alan_fincher]

24 minutes ago, Jerra said:

It would appear I am alone in liking them.

I have no idea whether you are alone in that or not, (other than clearly the designers claim to like them!).

To me they look far more obtrusive and inappropriate to where they will be erected, than would have been a much simpler "traditional" design that just limited itself to doing the job that it seems to have been decided has to be done.

They will clearly also have cost a great deal more than something much more straightforward.

Personally I can't agree the decision to put anything there at all.  If someone wants to kill themselves it will still be equally possible.  Most of us will anyway have seen kids hanging off the outside of railings on tall structures at some time or another in our lives .  (Although at least the new design doesn't feature a rail on top that some might try walking along!)

Where next ?  Pontcysyllte ?  Once you have started, where do you stop?

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:

Where next ?  Pontcysyllte ?  Once you have started, where do you stop?

I will deal with the Pontcysyllte first.   To the best of my knowledge people aren't tempted to try jumping across and landing on the tiny side to the trough.   People may commit suicide by crossing and jumping but that is a totally different matter.   So there is no need for railings (I can't imagine how they could put a wall there.   With situations where there is some form of "landing" no matter how small there will always be  somebody who will have a go.   In the current society we live in CRT will be at fault, blamed and possibly sued if some clown goes and kills themselves.  So fitting railings or a wall is a form of self preservation.

Where will it stop?  That is difficult the more society progresses along the "its all their fault" and "where there's blame there's a claim" the more of this we will see.

Unlike some I don't see why the older parts of the system can't stand alongside modern things.  I find many cities fascinating the way you have an old well preserved building alongside a modern one.

[Flyboy]

I reckon the new Marple railings will be perfect for a  Bungee jumping anchorage. Then someone will kill themselves and CRT will be blamed for providing the anchorage where none existed before.

[Jerra]

12 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

I reckon the new Marple railings will be perfect for a  Bungee jumping anchorage. Then someone will kill themselves and CRT will be blamed for providing the anchorage where none existed before.

With only 16 deaths between 1986 & 2002 (the most recent figure I can find) and most of them abroad it is IMO a little unlikely.   The risk in a bungee jump is 1:500,000.

[J R ALSOP]

The only use I can see is they would be handy to tie your boat up to when having  a lunch stop.

[Machpoint005]

3 hours ago, Jerra said:

I was going to give a greenie for this until the last sentence.   It would appear I am alone in liking them.

Perhaps I should have inserted the word "particularly"?

3 hours ago, Jerra said:

In the current society we live in CRT will be at fault, blamed and possibly sued if some clown goes and kills themselves.  So fitting railings or a wall is a form of self preservation.

Sad, but true.

[Pluto]

22 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

That's a little unfair -- "they" may well have both paper qualifications and practical experience.

"They" may also know more about the big picture here than you or I. I don't like the railings either, though.

I did say that both practical and academic skills need to be valued, and that one should not be valued above the other. To have both is obviously beneficial, but I don't meet that many that have both, and our current educational and management systems do seem to mitigate against those with practical skills gaining recognition. The problem to me is that too many managers are managing assets for which they have no practical experience, so they end up relying on academic qualifications when choosing staff as they are incapable of understanding the practical skills necessary for a particular job.

[Captain Pegg]

On 22 December 2017 at 12:22, Jerra said:

I will deal with the Pontcysyllte first.   To the best of my knowledge people aren't tempted to try jumping across and landing on the tiny side to the trough.   People may commit suicide by crossing and jumping but that is a totally different matter.   So there is no need for railings (I can't imagine how they could put a wall there.   With situations where there is some form of "landing" no matter how small there will always be  somebody who will have a go.   In the current society we live in CRT will be at fault, blamed and possibly sued if some clown goes and kills themselves.  So fitting railings or a wall is a form of self preservation.

Where will it stop?  That is difficult the more society progresses along the "its all their fault" and "where there's blame there's a claim" the more of this we will see.

Unlike some I don't see why the older parts of the system can't stand alongside modern things.  I find many cities fascinating the way you have an old well preserved building alongside a modern one.

 

21 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

Sad, but true.

Not entirely. CRT would only be to blame if they ignored precursor incidents of people being in danger of accidentally falling. They wouldn't be to blame in the event of an isolated incident of recklessness. That would be misadventure.

The risk here appears to be the potential for someone to inadvertently step off a boat on the offside and I could understand CRTs position if there have been reports of recurring incidence of this happening. In this instance it's perhaps most likely to be a child that is as risk. For that reason using evidence of people having historically fallen off as the decision criterion is flawed.

I had no great issue with the proposal to fit the barrier since that's a normal situation for assets that have potential for falls from height and this is an asset that has to operate in the modern world. That's far better than it being a museum piece. I will reserve judgment on the design until I see it in situ but my experience is that matching ancient and modern on the same structure or building seldom works (at least in the UK). I fear this has been over thought and a simple iron railing or indeed a parapet wall may have been better.

I often see old incorporated into new where I think it would have been more appropriate to knock down old buildings or structures of no significant architectural or structural merit and replace them entirely with something modern and better.

i did once manage to walk across the adjacent viaduct without falling off or being struck by a train.

JP

3 hours ago, Pluto said:

I did say that both practical and academic skills need to be valued, and that one should not be valued above the other. To have both is obviously beneficial, but I don't meet that many that have both, and our current educational and management systems do seem to mitigate against those with practical skills gaining recognition. The problem to me is that too many managers are managing assets for which they have no practical experience, so they end up relying on academic qualifications when choosing staff as they are incapable of understanding the practical skills necessary for a particular job.

Knight Architects operate at the end of the market that is only accessible to those who can demonstrate considerable academic prowess and practical experience.

JP

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

CRT would only be to blame if they ignored precursor incidents of people being in danger of accidentally falling. They wouldn't be to blame in the event of an isolated incident of recklessness. That would be misadventure.

Nevertheless, it would have a potential cost, and that is set against the cost of taking what might be regarded in another Court as no more than "due diligence". Nobody can second-guess the verdict in a particular set of circumstances. 

I think the particular problem here is that whatever CRT decided to do -- fancy designer railings, simple iron railings, stone parapet, nothing at all, or something else -- somebody somewhere would object to it.