Beach Road's 'The Town Hall' is for sale

Probably the most substantially constructed dwelling in Lee-Over-Sands, aka 'The Town Hall' as many Beach Roaders call it, is up for sale on a major web-property portal. The private sale sign has been up for several months now. Click here to visit the listing on RightMove

Lee-Over-Sands Gypsy site

Just heard from a reader of our blog (a local journalist) that the application has been turned down, mainly on the grounds of the site being in a flood risk area. What makes this a hollow victory for us is that this decision was apparently not made because of our resident's objections but zoning technicalities. The local opinions of real neighbours which should be what actually matters in the decision making process - so ironically sometimes, we can get a result through our so called elected democratic process - just not the right one we hope for!

Access Road Maintenance 2011 - Hopes & Dreams

I've noticed a big deterioration in our private access road from the EA depot to Wall Street since the weather has deteriorated in October.

Regular readers of the blog already know this year Andy Haynes and I did our best to voluntarily improve it for all residents and households during the summer using our own funds and manpower as the owners of the road had not bothered to maintain it and maintain our access rights. Thankfully our desperation fuelled work earlier in the year has remained intrinsically sound and unaffected by the wet weather. Hopefully residents driving over it will notice that all the hardcore re-inforced areas we filled in the summer have remained level - proving that it was a sensible decision.

The remainder of the rough-track road that we did not work on covered with a fine gravel covering has once more moved around dramatically with the wet weather and late summer vehicular movement - producing large pot-holes and bumps which have started to re-appear throughout the 1.6 km making it tougher to get a normal car down once more.

By spring these areas will have deteriorated further - in 2011 I'll be contributing another £180 towards another 20 ton load of hardcore - which is what I provided last year in addition to the 70 tons Andy and his mother paid for.

I've been thinking about some of the previous negative attitudes towards the work by a couple of individuals, and I think a good compromise would be to make the entry point of the road look intentionally uneven to put off car-based explorers and the "boy-racer" fraternity which they cited as the main reasons for not improving the surface. If we improve 95% of the road past that point we can move up and down more easily and still maintain the feeling of isolation we adore!

Given all the positive encouragement we had last year from all the other residents, hopefully this year given our new spirit of community cooperation we'll be able to rally support and get some more help both financially and physically to improve it further!

BT Infinity - Fibre-Optic Broadband to suit the 21st Century

I'd advise all residents of Lee-Over-Sands to vote for this (click here), our broadband speeds are typically 1.5 megabits or less - so any fundamental system improvements to broadband will solve our speed issues, which is mainly because we are so far from the nearest exchange, which reduces our conventional ADSL broadband speed.

Lee-Over-Sands Gypsy site

I spotted a news item today about traveller's sites, and noticed someone had made a comment at the bottom of the local newspaper's website edition of their article - albeit erroneously and misinformed with regards to the current status about our site in Wall Street.

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8416446.Severalls_travellers____site_idea_won___t_work__says_gipsy_supporter/?ref=rss

Technically the council originally only granted residency and permission for caravans on the small site to a past resident (Mr Grinrod) for 5 years for one immediate family only. This was revoked technically when a different family, the Dorans moved in. In July 2010 the family disappeared, leaving the site unoccupied.

Since then a yellow planning notice has been attached to the telegraph pole outside the site and letters sent to immediate neighbours only about an extension allowing caravans onsite being applied until 2012.

Whilst the Doran family themselves were no trouble, apart from their work vans going in and out dozens of times a day the only major problems we had were with their extended family during visits - what concerns me is that there is massive uncertainty about the quality of future tenants - I'd suggest to all residents that we all write to the council to individually object, as its unclear who might eventually return to the site, it could be a decent family like the Dorans, or the ownership could be passed on to another family by sale or lease/rent of the land - and we could be left with the problems Phil and Carol unfortunately faced in the past.

If you want to support or object to this application here is the link to the Tendring Planning website.
http://idox.tendringdc.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=neighbourComments&keyVal=L8DCONQB09L00

Wall Street Sewage System update

Just to let readers of our blog know, that the weekend's work on the pump system and increase in flow efficiency has resulted today in the pit fluid level going down to the position of the pump, which is 4.5 metres down from floor level, a really big difference to what we saw before getting the key - back then the sewer pit was almost full, only half a metre down from floor level.

Our aim is to get the fluid levels in the galleries / manholes (near Robbie & Frank) down to sensible levels - as previously this was not happening or being checked by the previous management - which risked the system being backed up with solids at the extreme end of the pipework.

Now, as the levels have dropped so much, the clay pipe entry into the sewer is above the water level, which should mean the rest of the system is no longer full with water.

Now we've achieved this, the pump has been set only on the timer - I re-adjusted the time-switch to run for 1 hour each night today, and will closely monitor it over the next week.

Wall Street Sewage System update

After finally obtaining the key for all residents, Puck, Andy and I took a good look at the sewage system over the weekend and did some thorough testing.

We considered several factors, how could we lift the pump more easily than I had with a friend last year, and how we could monitor levels, as it is extremely hard to measure the amount of fluid going into the system obviously.

While I looked thoroughly at the electrical installation - Andy and Puck scrutinised the pumping.

I started out by first measured the average current to three phase pump, approx 1.8 Amps on a single phase, I also tested the pump under startup load, no problems either so the pump looks like it is electrically sound.

What was surprising was that after 8 years of maintenance, and pump specialists looking at the pump, nobody had realised that the pump itself had not been earthed, and the armoured cable to the control box had been linked to the contactor with a piece of 3 core mains flex! Whilst this would be ok in some situations, if the pump is double insulated and IP rated for immersion, the pump is actually suspended on a steel chain connected to the body of the steel pump outer casing. This means that should a fault develop inside the pump electrically, anyone touching the chains would most likely be electrocuted or at least get a very nasty 415 Volt shock - and with an open manhole that is 5 metres deep - thats a very dangerous situation!

I also discovered that there was a fault with the earth spike for the building, as when I put in a temporary earth, the motor tripped out, which made me realise someone had previously made a decision to not attach an earth to the pump rather than spending 5 pounds on an earth spike and making off the armoured cable sheath properly (which is an earth!)

Andy started to fit a ratchet chain block kindly supplied by Puck and tackle and a frame to support it, to enable us to raise and examine the pump more easily while I started to investigate the best way of fitting a time-switch onto the system.

I switched the pump on at 1.30am and it was switched off in the morning at 7.30am - At 10:30am on Sunday further investigation was made (removal of the outlet hose outside the building) proved that the pump was doing very little, with black sludge coming up - a trickle, rather than gushing out of the 2 inch pipe. This explained why the level in the sewer wasn't moving. Andy calculated 2 cubic metres had been shifted overnight. It was quite clear that the pump isn't doing its job, as a 2kw pump should shift that sort of quantity in an hour - even a pond fountain 400Watt pump would do better than that!

We lifted the pump, which of course with the right kit is now pretty easy thanks to our collective expertise and equipment - we discovered that the position of pump vertically is crucial to flow, if the pump is positioned too low, then it can't cope with the "black sludge" - and does very little. As soon as the pump was raised a few inches, and started again, we had a full flow outside.

I replaced the old timeswitch, which I had fitted yesterday - which didn't seem to advance, over to a low-cost plug in version, which will be more easy to replace in the event of a fault, and re-wired the previous control box so that the emergency stop button would function again.

The timeswitch has now been set to run from 1.30am to 5.30am in the morning, so we can take advantage of night electicity rates (economy 7). As the pit was still quite high, we decided to override the timeswitch from 2pm onwards to reduce the pit's fluid levels and get the manholes down the road back to a sensible low level.

Andy will look at the old pump unit and attempt to refurbish it, and my next job next weekend will be to fit a proper earth spike and run an earth cable to the pump connection in the control box to make it completely safe.

We also discussed investigating the flow rate at the end of the pipe at the sewage works, so we will investigate that in due course.

Very High Tide across Beach Road & Ray Creek!

My Stepdad today noticed how high the tide was at midday today while walking his dog - for a Lee-Over-Sands resident like me who lives behind the sea-wall and not owning a dog to walk regularly has meant that I've always been blissfully unaware of how high the tide gets sometimes across the "other side" of our sea-defences.

I was pretty amazed at what I saw... The creek had vanished.... and the sea was at the foot of the sea-wall height, approx 2-3 metres from the top.

Amazing stuff - and for residents of Wall Street who would be otherwise under water, as you can clearly see from the picture below...

you can see the difference in height between properties on the Beach Road side compared to Wall Street...




...Its good to see the seawall is doing its thing - well - it will until 2050 apparently, which is when all maintenance of the sea-defences will be cancelled!

Residents Association & Sewage Meeting for Option 3

13 Residents/Homeowners met half way down Wall Street on Sunday at 12pm to discuss and make a final decision on "Option 3" as proposed by Frank at the last meeting.

Of the 10 eligable households, 8 were in agreement with Frank's suggestion that we should all run the sewage system via an elected committee and make use of all of our skills. Unfortunately despite this landslide majority, the only two households that disagreed were Phil and Andy King, who between themselves had decided after the last meeting much to our dismay took things into their own hands and took control. Despite the fact that the last vote was not unanimous (see previous post).

We discussed Franks proposal, and there was a landslide majority - that we would all manage the pump - questions were asked about why people who don't reside have a key - Frank's wife made a very good point about why the key had been issued to Andy and his father in-law, and who had the right to make such a  decision  for all of us. This seemed to polarise attitudes for all residents and the meeting then seemed to turn on the current keyholders. At the end of the discussion we said that as it was quite clear that opinions had changed that we should take control asap - we then asked who had the key now, Andy King answered - the group then informed him that Andy H & Derek will need the keys immediately so we can examine the condition of the pump equipment and start making our analysis of the situation.

They stated to everyone that they would not hand over the keys to the new majority, citing that the owners of the pump room would not agree with it. Regrettably Andy left the proceedings, followed 20 minutes later by Phil, as things were clearly not going the way they had hoped.

The rest of us, the majority of 8 households - then formally proposed and voted on a residents comittee who would be formally in charge of pump management, and be accountable to all residents - first a treasurer, Puck (Mark Burgess) and Frank Bollu as chairman of the residents committee.

We stated that our first mission is to get the padlock removed so the elected comittee can run the sewage system in the way the majority of residents want it to be handled.

Talks are currently going on to this end with Puck and Andy King.

Clacton-Air-Show

Flyovers have been few and far between for the Clacton-Air-Show - I filmed this earlier today....

Bad smell recently

Anyone else notice the bad smell coming from the sea direction over the weekend? It smelled like sewage, wind direction was from the South, so it must have been coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Mersea Island. Ironically today, the wind is blowing from inland, across the LeeWick sewage farm and we can't smell anything - very bizzarre!

UPDATE: Fri 27th August.
The smell is back... it seems to be whenever we have no wind - the question now is where is the smell coming from, Wall Street's drains, the sewage unit, or Lee-Wick lane sewage depot - or possibly even somewhere on Beach Road... Hopefully someone with a good sense of smell can track it down!

Water Pipe - Self Laying Rules

I've found this document that appears to go through the regulations that we need to follow if we are going to lay the new water supply pipe ourselves. Its a pretty involved document, and I'll be getting my head around it this week between my 9-6 work and house building committments.

http://www.deevalleywater.co.uk/article_files/90/english/Self_Lay_Policy.PDF

We need to understand all the technical details in this document whatever we do.

Here's Anglian Water's version of the same thing - all based on British Standards all water companies adhere to:
http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/_assets/media/Guidance-notes-for-self-lay-water-mains-services.pdf

Which reminds me - I'm still trying to find a phone number for "Bond's" - I've looked online and can't find anything - if nobody knows the number, I do have a vague idea where they are now, so if by the end of the week I can't find a phone number I'll go into the village and knock on a few doors until I find them!

Wall Street Sewage Meeting 2 - second vote for "Option 3"

Having given the situation a lot of thought, I'm struggling to maintain a positive attitude due to events after our last meeting. I'm going to put my suspicions aside (I wish other people would) - disregard my last post and the "past" - I really want us to sort this out.

I can see why people might think that it wasn't a clear majority, yet the previous controllers of the system took it upon themselves to retain the key and do things their way citing a false vote result in their favour.

It wasn't a clear majority - the third option of "everyone" being in charge was a solution to the stalemate on the last vote as our last best hope. I can see this might have annoyed people - as they weren't asked - this 3rd option wasn't really voted on by EVERYONE, so its really important now that we do so. It seemed the best solution to those who remained at the meeting till the end.

To be completely fair - we now need to have a second vote now to be truly democratic to give everyone a proper chance via a secret ballot to vote on Frank's suggestion.

Additionally this meeting should also put in place a proper residents committee with fully voted representatives. This will also give us more political clout with the authorities in the future, and is something I'm sure Smith's Farms will agree with, as they always cite "what everyone wants" - during conversations - although the reality is this "everyone" was not in the past a proper majority. Additionally I have said to Phillip Smith on many occasions that we should have a proper residents committee.

A proper committee will help us sort things out democratically and give everyone a say.

Why this is very important to our small community:
The sewage issue is a pilot scheme for our bigger issues that we face - the water supply needs unity - if we can't come to a fair outcome, what chance do we have for our future infrastructure - leaving a very real possibility that we could be left high and dry if things deteriorate without residents taking action TOGETHER.

Who exactly was running the pump ?

I realised today I'd been lied to for a whole year about who was actually ultimately responsible for the bills on the Sewage.

The person I thought was doing it was really just the money collector. I feel really betrayed after all the conversations I had with certain individuals - for an entire year!

This makes me think even more that we can't go on having people in charge of the system who can't "come clean" on all the accounts or be honest with people when in discussions, casual or otherwise - I've decided from my own perspective - they will need to now substantiate their sums by proving everything in relation to bills, maintenance and expenditure.

I'm not giving money to anyone I can't trust without a paper trail to prove it from now. It sounds like I've been paying through the nose for mistakes made by the pump management before I moved into the road - It would seem that my contributions have footed the bill for the pump bought a couple of years ago.

It makes the arguments over £40 almost 8 years ago seem quite trivial in comparison.

As I keep saying we'd pay the same amount for commercial sewage service in a town. (approx £150 p.a. - Last year's bill for sewage for Lee-Over-Sands Wall Street residents was approx £140 for a year in total).

Whatever happens - Given this realization - I'd advise everyone in the street to demand an itemised bill before paying anything to anyone - whoever is in charge - it all needs to be transparently accountable... no more slips of paper with only "You owe £55 this period" and no explaination of why, or copies of bills paid during that period.

This is a key point that was our main issue - more transparency. Whatever happens - we need accountability - its only fair to all residents who contribute.

Sewage Shed Light Left On

Since Carol got an electricity company out last week - the sewage shed light has been left on - running up our bill. I've asked three people so far to give me the key or go switch it off - no luck, always excuses, "someone else has it etc"

The story goes that John had the key. When I asked John today for the key, his son-in-law has it. And today, he didn't arrive.

Is it really wise for someone who doesn't live here yet to have the key for emergencies - Utterly Daft.

I think we all know whats really going on here. Puck needs a meter reading to sort out the billing on the new tariff. I need to go in to start measuring current on the pump and monitoring flow, and start planning the switching work to lower the bills.


What worries me more is that the pump might have been left running as well as the light being left on - you can imagine the bill we'll have if its been running for 24hrs non stop for a week.

Reluctantly I've spoken today to Phillip Smith, who is the actual owner of the shed about removing the padlock with his permission - he will be getting back to me later today.

Sewage Unit decision made

Just to be clear, for those people who didn't see the update on the end of the blog entry about the Sewage unit. This is a seperate entry that explains the outcome of the meeting a bit more thoroughly for those people who didn't see the updated bits.

This is what happened for the benefit of those residents who didn't stay until the end.
If you're unhappy with this, you should have stayed until the end!

Voting was as follows: 
(It was decided that non attendees would not be counted - one vote per occupied household)

Votes for: Robbie, Derek, Andy Haynes
Votes against: Carol, Theresa, Andy King

Deciding votes were then up to Puck and Frank's choices.

Puck after much deliberation for half an hour decided to vote against our proposal which resulted in:

Votes for: Robbie, Derek, Andy Haynes

Votes against: Carol, Theresa, Andy King, Puck

This left a Final Deciding casting vote which would result in either a stalemate or a vote of 5 to 3 to keep it "as it was", which was all down to Frank's final vote.

Frank did not want to make a choice, as he could see the merits of both situations - and proposed a third scenario to the remaining attendees as a new option to break the stalemate - suggesting that we should all pool our knowledge and skills between us - rather than having 2 seperate camps, which is a very weak position to be in - as it would have ended up with either the "Technical people", and "non-technical" people managing it. Saying it was not a sensible situation to end up with - we should be united so the skills we have can contribute end up helping reduce bills - so everyone who wants to help physically and is able bodied. practical and technically minded instead should be involved and helping us make decisions. Andy, Puck and I agreed with Frank's suggestion, as we are really not that "precious" about controlling it in isolation anyway - we'd prefer more people were involved generally.

How it will work 

Basically we will have a "sewage comittee" -  - but this time rather than being 3 of us - have more people to help decide what to do - 

e.g. Derek, Puck, Andy H, Andy King, Frank

membership of the committee is only conditional on two factors: 

1) only those that agree to contribute

2) able to help physically with lifting, are able bodied - as well as being practical and technically minded.

This will help us guide decision making in the best possible way for everyone's benefit. 

• Andy H and I will start by monitoring and measuring pump data for several months, which will require us to go in and take measurements and readings initially on a periodic basis - could be every day or every week - we haven't planned this yet. Obviously we're going to need the key to do this. We will not do anything to change existing equipment without having the relevant data and have consulted on our findings with the rest of the comittee and voted - abiding with a majority decision for any changes in equipment only via the committee.
• The £40 magic figure Andy and I proposed is something that now be dropped - instead we as a committee will do our best to do anything we can to reduce the bills to a sensible amount each year.
• Puck will be doing whatever he can to reduce billing and tariffs with the electricity company.
• Billing at year end in arreas will also not happen now it will be on a per quarter basis in arreas as before.

Hope that explains things better!

Wall Street Sewage maintenance

Andy and myself have proposed that we take over maintenance and running of the Wall Street sewage system, as maintenance costs have been increasing leading to a cost per household of £125 this year, which is what we would be charged by a commercial water company for waste disposal in a suburban setting.

Andy has his reasons for doing this which we all know about - He's happy to contribute towards this cost from now on the condition that he and I take over the system.

My own reasons are mainly to reduce the cost and make best use of our technical knowledge and experience rather than relying on a third party company.

With these facts in mind we collectively drafted a letter to all Wall Street residents for signed approval - if we get a majority result, we will take over management of it.

UPDATE: 10th August 2010 
Andy and I had a meeting with Puck (Mark) today to try and make some sense of the percieved ignorant nonsensical negativity towards our proposals, which is not helping matters and so we made positive, constructive suggestions as to how we can get a consensus of opinion and actually start sorting this out between us instead of lining the pockets of the 3rd party pump management company.

Our suggestion:

If certain individuals can't trust me just because of an irrational fear of association, then the obvious solution is to manage it collectively by committee - so it seemed sensible to us that it should be me, Andy & Puck organising this. Simple. If after a year the three of us haven't reduced running costs, then someone else should step in and attempt to do better.

My Personal Opinion
I don't like being dictated to, especially if it involves uneccessary expense. We have the skills to do this ourselves collectively. I must admit, I'm tempted to start investigating getting my own seperate system if this nonsense doesn't stop soon, which could mean another contributor dropping out = which will mean everyone else will end up with even higher bills, and I certainly won't be lending my own electrical engineering expertise to helping a system I no longer subscribe to if our proposal gets objected.


UPDATE: 
As all the letters, discussions and knocking on doors and seperate discussions over the last few days are taking up a lot of time and becoming stressful - unfortunately despite Puck's valiant attempts, it really isn't getting us anywhere - so I suggested and proposed we have a meeting about sewage so hopefully we can move forwards with this with all residents on Saturday 14th August 2010 at 1pm.


CONCLUSION:
After a residents meeting, which got quite heated at times, Some interesting points, and disappointingly some soap-box ranting that kicked off the meeting and expected lack of cooperation from negative residents because of past troubles, we finally managed to proceed and keep the meeting in a positive.
Joe raised the issue of public liability insurance, for example if someone is injured while working in the sewage shed. Personally I think the litigation culture is something we can do without - If I injure myself I certainly won't be suing the other residents for compensation or whoever did the work badly. Despite my opinions, its a relevant point, although I dismissed it at the time - the thing to consider though is insurance puts up costs. 
Andy King also raised the issue about insurance cover, e.g. if the system fails. This made us wonder about the current maintenance contract. Usually sewage damage is covered by buildings insurance, although this is something we should investigate to see how we stand if there is any negligence either intentionally or unintentionally. 
The rest of the residents were understanding and reasonable as everyone saw how important this is to us as a community. 
Voting was split down the middle, with equal amounts of households in favour of our proposal until the final two people, who had trouble deciding, it came down to one person's decision. Finally after 2 hours it was decided by the remaining people at the meeting with the deciding votes that we should all get involved as a third option - no more "2 camps" and division in the community - instead we should all get involved. 


MY OPINION:
All in all a good outcome. At least everyone attended - which was good - despite the problems - good constructive stuff, despite how stressful it all was. I am a bit worried that things could get disorganised due to too many people being involved in the decision making process - that said I do believe we're all better moving together as a strong unit. So lets hope it all goes well.

Veolia Site Visit : 21st July 2010

Veolia's engineers did a preliminary site visit yesterday, I showed them the manhole at the road junction, told them about the stopcock, and meter inside it, and also explained how Phillip Smith is happy to let us run the pipework in set-aside areas (5m) from the road.

They also saw the water tower during their visit, before going over to Beach Road.

This visit was to give full details and technical info to Martin Henderson, Head of Operations of Veolia Water who is visiting tomorrow (Friday 22nd July 2010) at 3pm at the junction of Wall Street to inform us of our options.

I'll update everyone on the details after the meeting.

UPDATE: Friday 22nd July 2010
After meeting with Veolia's head of operations, Martin Henderson, he explained that the figure for them supplying water to Lee-Over-Sands is approximately £100,000.

This would be a cost of £8000 per household should the amount be split between all 34 properties and covers the cost of running and installing a new main to each household.

Obviously this is out of most people's budgets, so we discussed our options with regards to installing our own pipe which new users would "buy into" and have shares of as previously suggested until such a time that all properties are on the system - after which we could hand over responsibility of maintenance and ownership of the pipe to the water company.

Cost of the supply pipe itself would be approx £6000, Veolia would be happy to commission and test the pipe after we lay it - so this is one way we can reduce costs. So digging is the main cost after the pipe itself.

Frank (No11 & No 9 Wall Street) is investigating costs of running our own pipe.

If we do things this way, then there will be a shared cost for joining and testing the supply pipe, then an individual per household cost of between £350 and £700 to connect up each house's boundary - so householders will need to run their own pipes into their homes too.

Local Flood Defence Plans and how they affect Lee-Over-Sands

Found an interesting link today that is the official line on the sea defences - has some interesting maps and historical information about previous flooding, as well as predictions based on breach points and also how the local geographical land gradients will affect depths of flood water etc.

Technically this only covers residents in Wall Street and the two houses on Beach Road that are protected currently by the seawall.

http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/TendringDC/Business/Regeneration/JaywickRegeneration.htm

Water Meter Readings

As promised during the meeting on Friday last week - on Saturday morning I the first of regular readings of the Lee-Over-Sands water supply meter for future reference, should any water companies start asking us about usage volumes.

Frank Bollu leant some much needed muscle to help with the concrete lid of the manhole after I scraped it free, and I left the resident colony of 6 slo-worms who were enjoying the cool water in the previously undisturbed bottom of the inspection pit that hadn't been opened for a few years!

After a bit of cleaning of the lens over the display, which was covered with mud - the meter gleamed the following figure -
The reading on 3/7/2010 was 42216.934 

Water Supply - Forms

Carol just found out today that Anglian Water don't deal with our area... so we can only deal with Violia - so only that form is worth sending back - she spoke to Mr Ross Wellham about our situation.

I've been trying to find out some more details about our options too.

This is roughly what we have currently - showing approximate route of pipes - contact me if its wrong and I'll update it! Beach Road is on a tank supply elevated to boost pressure. The rest in purple is approx 3bar at the far end of Wall Street (measured at no.6).

Should we have a new main fitted, the pipework needs to go here....

• Lee Wick to Wall Street 1,694 metres (in Red)
• Wall Street main length 276 metres (in Lime Green)
• Beach Road main total length 872 metres (in Cyan)

(These figures and distances are approximate based on Google Earth measurements and assume a new pipe is installed down the edge of the roads).

As you can see, the red part is shared between both roads - and at 1.7km approx, is going to be pretty expensive, but relatively easy to dig, as only the section through the Farm bend is tarmacced - which will cost more to do.

For a new water main for Lee-Over-Sands to be successful, the key here is the amount of subscribers - as this reduces the installation cost significantly, as a single application is a quote for the water to go from Leewick farm, down the road and up to your house. During our meeting last Friday with Smith's Farms represented by Phillip Smith (the Landowner) - I did suggest that in addition to allowing us wayleave access for digging, perhaps to reduce their annual water costs, they could donate or contribute towards installation costs - as it could potentially lower their costs in years following massively. This wasn't offered to us as an option, so its down to the owners and residents themselves to foot the bill.

The more applicants, and people filling out the application forms, the lower this figure is potentially, as the main pipe cost is shared between applicants - Andy Haynes kindly gave me some info from 2002 when he last looked into this - if the water company does all the work, back then it was £55,000. This was a singular application obviously, which would have resulted in his own pipe just for "his property".

Other options back then were available, e.g. "you put in our own pipe yourself", via a suitable contracting firm - if he did this, then the connection price is just the water company finishing the job off at both "ends" and was £382 based on 2002 prices.

So back in 2002, for the water company to do the work, the fair solution would be to split the cost between 34 properties - resulting in a cost of £1617 per household.

Once we get a firm amount of subscribers, and an up to date water company quote, this can be calculated, and then we can investigate the possibility of lowering the price by hiring a sub-contractor to lay the pipe using a machine, this hopefully will be far cheaper than the water company's price - but we would still need to divide up the cost between us. Only a WIRS (Water Industry Registration Scheme) approved company can do this, and of course this would need to be to the spec decided by the water company, e.g. pipe diameter, type of pipe etc. https://central.veoliawater.co.uk/docs/policy-and-company-specific-requirements.pdf

How I see this working...
The only way I can ever see this working is for a parallel supply pipe to be laid down Wall Street as well as the existing one, as otherwise if the water company suddenly connects up to the existing pipe networks around the 2 roads and houses, suddenly everyone would have to be charged - and currently we have issues with some residents not wanting to outlay for this at all - who obviously won't return any forms or subscribe to it. Instead choosing to remain on the Smith's supply and fight termination in court if it ever happens.

The key issue then, for those of us who want to have a water company supply - if we do have to run our own street pipe and main is this "who owns the pipe". If the water company owns the pipe, then future residents or those residents who refuse to pay their share, could just ask for their own connections and get it at a lower price, for example just paying for a meter to be connected. So those original people who paid for the installation outlaying thousands of pounds get totally screwed.

This is something that Veolia's conditions don't cover us for - as once they supply the water they apply a term called "vesting" which means they insist on adopting the pipe in the long-term after the connection to their network is made.

If we can avoid this "vesting" as an option - my solution to the problem of a lack of fairness with regard to the infrastructure installation (new main) pipes is this - If the residents themselves retain ownership of the pipes themselves, then nobody else will be allowed to connect without "buy-in" to the scheme - this would then enable those original subscribers to "claw back" monies from new connections - and thereby everyone retains a fair and equal investment/share via funds as more residents connect up. So with each new user, those previous subscribers would get a fractional amount back each time.

The only snag I can think of with this is idea is, that as owners of the pipes, we would be subject to costs and liability of future pipe maintenance, repairs, and any compliance testing to Veolia's water standards.

So all this is useful to understand during the site engineer's visit, as we need to ask all these questions about our options.

As Carol said, lets see what happens when the Violea engineer does his site visit and explains the options to us. Then we can decide what to do - and get an idea about figures.

Get filling in forms guys - remember don't bother with the Anglian water one - just fill in the Violia one, and return it ASAP so Mr Ross Wellham can work out our options!

UPDATE:
After we spoke to Veolia's representative, we realised that Beach Road would need to still be supplied via a shared tank as is the current situation. This means my diagram of the new pipework route above is wrong... it would instead look like this...

As you can see from this, the existing yellow section would still be fed from the storage tank, and Beach Road would be on a shared supply with a meter on the feed to the tank - it would then be up to Beach Road residents to share an account with the water company and share the billing between themselves.

Obviously the supply still needs to come down the same route, so Beach Road residents would still need to share the costs of installation of the new supply pipe.

Residents Meeting on Beach Road about the water supply

Friday evening (2nd of June 6.00pm) seems to be favourite for most permanent residents of Lee-Over-Sands to meet with the landowner re the water supply announcement - We've contacted as many people as possible about this - although its been hard to get contact details for anyone in Beach Road.

I'll be confirming the time and meeting date on this Blog entry in due course after I phone Phillip tomorrow to see if its convenient with him (Thursday June 1st 2010)

UPDATE: 6.30pm is the new time for this - Meet near Frank's house and the road sign on Wall Street I've mentioned this on the main posting, Phillip confirmed today he would be attending tonight.

UPDATE: The meeting went very well, with 16 residents attending, it went amicably, no arguments and most residents certainly took Phillip's words seriously and understood the situation plainly - which was very well outlined. Some residents (myself included) will organise ourselves into action on this matter and make sure everyone stays informed. Basically Smiths Farms informed us that the pipe was getting very old and may not be servicable for much longer, and that it might be ok for another 10 years, or not - and that we should investigate alternate supply options for the eventual time for when maintenance of the supply pipe is deemed no longer viable.

Beach Road Maintenance update Tuesday 22nd June 2010

I decided to put an hour of work into the road this evening after I finished my day job - and tackled some of the lumpy hardcore that was donated on Sunday. Most of the garage brickwork that was provided and roughly put down was ok, but just not quite fitting the dips right - as you can see from the picture.

So it just needed a little care and attention from someone like me to put right! - My obsessive compulsive nature enjoyed repositioning the bricks and half-bricks to fill holes - rather like doing a rough 3D jigsaw puzzle. I've found this work with brick hardcore is best done with a wheelbarrow and heavy duty gloves - literally on your hands and knees and selecting the right bricks to fit the relevant shaped holes. The shovel is only any good for loose smaller material.

I got through half of the rough piles, levelling it pretty well - the remaining amount up near the sewage farm still needs doing though (perhaps tomorrow night!)

Water Supply - The future...

During our meeting with Phillip Smith on Sunday he told us that as a community we should consider putting in place alternative solutions to the water supply, which at the moment is free of charge from Smith's Farms, presumably something to do with the Deed Covenants on the Lee-Over-Sands properties when originally sold from the landowner seems to imply that water would always be provided.


Phillip's concern is that if there are any problems with the supply pipe in the future - being originally laid in the 1930s it uses imperial fittings, so it will be hard to fix if sections need replacing as everything is now metric.


He also told me that the Smiths advise residents not to use the water for drinking. This surprised me, as I had no idea apart from some nagging doubts in my mind obviously wondering how clean the water is - but it wasn't something that was flagged during the conveyancing of my house purchase in Wall Street!


I've been drinking the water for a year now!


I've studied the water closely many times, it looked fine, and Phillip even admitted that they drink it too, so its probably ok!


So this is another potential issue for Lee-Over-Sands to consider for the future, and will be on the agenda when we eventually have residents committee meetings.


UPDATE: 25th of June 2010 15:00
I've just been looking into alternative supply options for the community - we have two options - Viola Water East and Anglian Water.


Viola (Tel: 0845 148 9288) were already aware when I called them that Smith's Farms supplied water to our community, which probably means they are the supplier for the farm.
Both companies said the same - Anglian's response was identical - I spoke to Eileen at the Developer Services in Lincoln (Tel: 08456 066 087)


The situation is this, either we raise an group application for a connection to the public water supply or seperate ones. The downside with the mass application method is someone (an individual would need to be billed singularly for the supply connection - e.g. residents committee via a nominated person).

Given that its pretty difficult getting everyone involved en-masse especially the money side of things, individual applications would seem to be the way to go with this.


Viola Water East will be sending out 15 forms to me - and you can download and print a form from here on the Anglian Water website. New_or_replacement_water_connection_application_form

I'd advise we find out which company will be cheaper in terms of provisioning quotes - which of course is the next step after we gather all the forms from all residents.


We have other options of course - all of which we should discuss as soon as we can get everyone together to discuss our options. Theresa and I are currently trying to find a mutually agreeable time for all residents on both Wall Street and Beach Road so we can all meet with the landowners where they will outline their intentions to us as a group.

Some photos taken by Nina Pope..

I spotted these pictures of Lee-Over-Sands today in an automated Google Alert taken by Nina Pope of our small community... http://www.flickr.com/photos/nina_pope/4714903654/in/photostream/

Beach Road Maintenance update Sunday 20th June 2010

Andy and I spent a whole day on the road today, we had a lot of positive comments from passers by, it seems we only have two homes who object to it, after discussion one of these people feared the road could become "too good" - but I talked sense into that person. The other home in Wall Street who objects has her opinions - but I placated her and made it quite clear that we are just making the road passable again for normal vehicles, and that whatever her views they should not adversely affect the rest of us - as that would be very selfish, especially making poor Carol have to sell her recently purchased new Ford Ka due to grounding!

Suprisingly, later on Guy Smith happened to pass us by without stopping as we were actually working on the track levelling it - Not long after I'm glad to report that his brother - Phillip Smith came down to chat to us. Initially he said "don't you think you should have asked the owner first..." to which I said... we did... several times and had our letters delivered by recorded delivery totally ignored.

We asked Phillip if he objected to the work, to which Phillip said he had no objections, and was more worried that collectively other residents did not want the work done. Most of the issues here are between Andy and the Smiths, who ironically are distant relatives, so I was suprised to hear that my previous suggestions for myself to act as go-between had not been fed back to the Smiths, so I asked Phillip and Guy to liase with me in future as I'm quite reasonable and open to discussion and plain actions.

The Smith's opinions for "what residents want" of course could be deemed theoretically as not being a real collective opinion - the reality of this of course is that those residents who dissent are not impartial in their views due to their relationships with Smiths farm either by use of land or employment - which is obvious - after all, who wants to rock the boat. I explained this, and told Phillip that we were exercising our individual rights as set out in our deeds permitting us to widening the road and of unhindered access. Without going into reams of text in this entry - basically I went on to explain all the reasons in the previous posting on the website. Phillip seemed quite reasonable during this discussion, and I told him it was nice for us to finally hear it from them directly instead of rumours and chinese whispers fed via their network of neighbours who work for them!

I explained to Phillip that it was a shame that the Community service volunteers that we were trying to organise got blocked to help us do the work - He said he was unaware of what was going on being the reason for blocking it. We then asked him if he had no objections now he could see how beneficial the work would be for our community as it was a very unreasonable that now Andy and I were having to do all the work ourselves because of that decsion, and that they should reconsider their decision. Phillip then said he had no objections now, so I suggested if he could contact the person who called them and approve it. I will be contacting Phillip with the phone number of the Community service team leader so hopefully things will happen and finally we'll get some help and manpower!

Phillip actually commented how well we were doing the work, which was a pleasant surprise, so I thanked him and said our intention was to improve things for all of Lee-Over-Sands - not just for ourselves. I also explained that as we all have individual rights that the views of one or two residents should not adversely affect the rest.

Phillip also mentioned that over the next 10 years there could be issues with the water supply as the pipework is old and imperial fittings based, so this could become a future issue, should more faults develop, suggesting that we should start investigating alternative supply arrangements with a local water company.

I suggested that ideally we would form a residents committee in the near future to sort things like this out for all of us. And as we exchanged contact details, I re-iterated Andy's suggestion and said it would be a nice gesture for Smiths farm to offer to provide some materials to help us continue the work.

So all in all a good positive outcome. The Smiths seem happy with what we have done thusfar, and so do all the residents, apart from those that work for or have vested interests / favours with the landowners.

I think time will prove that this work is for everyone's benefit, and finally getting a chance to have a dialogue with the landowner directly gave Andy and I great satisfaction for future maintenance of our road.

Houses for sale in Lee-Over-Sands

Looks like there are two houses up for sale in Beach Road at the moment, one is the first substantially built one with security cameras on the left as you go down the road, and the other is this one, which is mid way along... "BON ACCORD"
http://www.bedfords.co.uk/SearchPropertyDetails.aspx?propid=35332_BSE100195#property_search

The Water Tower

Lee-Over-Sand's water supply comes from the landowner, Guy Smith - our community is very lucky enough not to have to pay anything towards our water supply! This appears to be due to a covenant in our deeds referring back to the original sale of the plots stating that water was provided.

A part of this incumbent legacy water supply infrastructure is the water tower at the end of Wall Street. We've been getting increasingly concerned about the condition of the support structure for the water tower. With vehicles nearby and children who often play around it, Andy has expressed his concerns about it to me on numerous occasions.

As its in a highly exposed position, corrosion and rust has started to weaken the metal supports - as you can see from the photos below. This obviously means that as time goes on, without maintenance by the landowner (who provides the community's water supply) It could become dangerously unstable.

 
Its believed that the tower is there to provide adequate water pressure to properties on Beach Road, which are 2 metres higher than those in Wall Street, from where the supply originates - so this helps increase the usable pressure on the system. Unless Beach Road's supply is completely seperate from the tower, as our water supply in Wall Street is exactly 3 bar, I think it might also provide a head (boost) to our pressure, and its height would indicate - although turning it off would confirm it, the latter is a theory of mine.

Otherwise this could be the only water supply feed to Beach Road, a seperate stored water system, fed from Wall Street's supply, up and into the tank, then gravity boosted downwards with a pipe going across the seawall.


So theoretically - if the water is stored for Beach Road in this tank, then it shouldn't be drinkable. 

Access Road Maintenance 2010

Andrew Haynes (3 Wall Street) and I have recently started to work on filling holes in the road with crushed hardcore. Andy and I wrote to the landowner (Guy Smith) about the bad condition of the road back in early 2010 as the track had deteriorated to a point where normal road cars were grounding due to excessive pot holes and dips.

Our chief concerns were our access rights were suffering as a result, the Royal Mail had threatened to stop deliveries to us, and increasingly delivery lorries are increasingly refusing to come down to us for fear of vehicle damage or damage to goods in the back of their vehicles while travelling over the rough track.

Despite our efforts, the landowner did not bother to reply in writing to me or Mr Haynes.

In years gone by, previous residents and workers in the area have told us (although of course these are unconfirmed rumours) that previously the landowner's father maintained the road each year, but over the last few years this regrettably ended. We were worried that access was getting difficult, and of course deterioration only gets worse - which would make it difficult to get emergency vehicles and deliveries to Lee-Over-Sands.

Rumours say that last year Jim Doran from the caravan site plot in Wall Street started to repair the road, but was allegedly stopped doing the work by Guy, who stated that instead he would supply material, labour and machinery, regrettably nothing happened afterwards.

With these concerns in mind - both for our individual and community access rights - our reasons for our letter was to send out a clear message by sending a copy of our first letter to Mr Smith about our intentions and sent copies to all residents. We expected a reasonable and fair written response which we would have publised to all residents of Lee-Over-Sands - but months later, nothing... No action!

Whilst some residents with 4x4 and larger vehicles seem unbothered and enjoy the additional isolative barrier the road generates - the important thing to remember here is that the feelings of one or two indivuals should not conflict - as legally as individual homeowners, each home has rights - so the views of some cannot restrict the rights of others to unihindered access.

Our main concerns though over and above individual access rights are that of concern for our neighbours - given that we have older residents in Wall Street - emergency vehicle access and response time - is critical with heart disease - and the last thing we want is for the landowner/s or other dissenting residents to be directly responsible for a death down our road if an ambulance could not get here in time.

To be honest we really don't care about the politics - we just care how it is affecting our lives - which of course is basically stopping family members and friends visiting us for fear of damage to their cars etc.

As residents we all have individual access rights - we are home owners. Our properties' deeds state we can widen the road at any time, and to do this, obviously repair work needs to be done first to stop the winter freeze-thaw and structural differences in materials on the surface producing any more holes and dips and make the surface stable. Water pooling is the enemy here, so we are doing all we can to remedy the situation now before it gets so bad the landowner starts getting consequential vehicular damage claims from all of us!

Materials & Labour Cost
Andy and I decided to minimise costs by trying to do the work ourselves. This is on a voluntary basis, and we expect all users of the road to help in some way, however little or much they can help will be gratefully received, whether you rent or own a property in our hamlet - if you go up and down the track its only fair you should contribute.

Andy is paying for the fuel in his digger and tipper truck, with he & I doing shovelling when required to level more accurately.

Labour is on a voluntary basis - please help if you can and contact Derek & Andy to arrange a date to help. Or call round to see us at the end of Wall Street to pledge/provide financial donations to materials.

Alternatively if you don't trust us with your funds, you can order crushed hardcore yourself, or pay to have it delivered to us, and we will be pleased to put it onto the road!

Road Maintenance Contributions:
Andrew 7/6/2010   - £91 - 10 Tons of crushed hardcore
Derek:   11/6/2010 - £182 - 20 Tons of crushed hardcore
Mrs Haynes 14 & 15/6/2010 - £500 - 60 Tons of crushed hardcore

UPDATE: 25/10/2010
Total amount of material used so far:
10 tons - Andrew Haynes
20 tons - Derek Foley
20 tons - Mrs Haynes
20 tons (yet to be used - outside Andrew's home) - Mrs Haynes
Leaving £136 from Mrs Haynes contribution outstanding.

Future Pledges from:
Gaie Foley (22 Beach Road - no relation)
Chris (Beach Road)
Derek Foley (2nd 20 Ton load later in the year)

Update: 2/7/2010
Stephen Sproat of Beach Road very kindly expressed an interest to contribute towards the road maintenance - to be confirmed.

Welcome to our new blog!

This is the Lee-Over-Sands Residents Blog - designed to bring facts and local information about issues to the residents of this small hamlet of houses on Beach Road and Wall Street on Colne Point between Point Clear and St Osyth Seawick Holiday Village.

I decided to start this blog to shed some light in a public forum about things that concern residents and to give the people a chance to make a difference and know the facts instead of relying on rumours!

Feel free to post, discuss and chat.
All postings will be moderated by me, Derek Foley (6 Wall Street) for suitability.