Placing of lamps appears random (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Placing of lamps appears random

11:00am Thursday 30th October 2008 in Letters

I thought I should express my gratitude to the council which has been providing new lampposts.

In various streets leading from, and including, Queens Crescent in Chippenham over the last few weeks we have seen white circles painted on pavements and roads. We then had some of these painted over in black, only for new white ones to appear nearby. Then began the random installation of new posts. Sometimes we would see a couple installed in one day. Not necessarily adjacent. On occasion, whilst this was continuing, lamp fittings have been appearing mounted on top of these posts. Again the fitting pattern appears totally random. Some posts now have their lamps, some seem to have been passed over.

This spasmodically continuing activity has left me with a few questions.

1. Why new lampposts? Whilst I can claim no expertise in a lamppost’s life cycle the old ones look perfectly serviceable to me.

2. Presumably the new lamps have some claim to reduced running costs. Just what savings may we expect for our council tax?

3. Does the person with the black and white paint pots have access to any plans showing the location of the power, telephone, water, sewage and drainage connections?

4. Does whoever is ‘managing’ this project have any understanding of project management techniques: critical path analysis, risk analysis, contingency planning? And is there an expected completion time? Or has chaos theory been applied?

5. It could be that work has to be fitted in between the installation of Christmas lights in town.

After all Halloween will soon be with us.

6. Could the problem be that whole project is suffering from some kind of cash flow problem? Funds locked in an inaccessible overseas bank account?

Maybe readers would care to speculate on the answers.

M D Tucker Littlecote Road Chippenham