A day of waiting

Back in early June I met on site a tree contractor who was working for UK Power Networks. We have numerous trees which were growing close to and surrounding the overhead high voltage cables and they had been trying to gain access to attend to the trees. I dutifully signed the forms and was told I would hear from someone within 10 days and a date would be set for 2-3 weeks after that as the trees were being scorched by the wires and were a potential fire hazard.
Needless to say he days passed and I heard nothing I then started to chase the powers that be to try to get a date for shutdown but after being promised a date and it not happening I was beginning to lose faith. I then managed to get an emergency engineer out who agreed that it was a fire risk and he would report it as such. This raised us to "ASAP" level - which still doesn't get you a date but it would "definitely be within 2 weeks". More time passed (yes - over 2 weeks) so it was time for something in writing so early last week an email was sent stating that should our site burn down it would be their fault plus should our contractor have to return to tidy up from their contractors (which he was expecting to do!) after he had left site I would be billing them for this too.



Well it took a week for this email to eventually arrive on the correct desk and yesterday it all kicked off!! I had popped up to site for a normal look around at 10.30 and was about to leave when I spotted 2 messages on my phone from UKPN. I was told that today the overhead cables were being turned off to allow for emergency tree surgery to our site. At 11.30 two UKPN men turned up in 2 vehicles. After further delay and many phone calls regarding the work that was to be carried out, three tree men and their vehicle turned up at 2pm. At 3pm 3 more electrical men (known as the "Hot Glove Team") arrived, each in their own vehicle arrived. By 4.15 the electricity supply had been turned off and the first chainsaw was revved up. Of course my concern was that they wouldn't get the work done in time before it got too dark. I made a quick dash to school to pick up T1 & T2 then back up to site. The power was turned back on at just before 7pm and all left the site with promises of the tree men returning tomorrow...?

The good news is they were there this morning, even Volvo man was surprised they returned. The site is now a complete mess with bits of trees left everywhere and bits all over the road. I shall return later to see how much tidying up they have actually done.