Having read the entire Daily Mail article in the newspaper, all it did was confirm everything I have read and heard about the current state of the Greek finances, and that they are unsustainable. Better Greece goes bust now, that in two years time when they blow another £100 billion Euros. We don’t want to pay more than £14,000 each if we don’t have to.

In my totally uneducated opinion Greece needs to default now and go back to the drachma. No wonder Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England is strongly advising against giving Greece any more EU money and calling for an audit of Eurozone Crisis Risk. Everyone knows not to throw good money after bad, even if there will be a domino effect and other countries will follow.

The only way out for Greece and any country (including the UK if necessary) is re-valuation back to affordable levels rather that propping up financial systems that will collapse harder, deeper and further if we all don’t face the reality of over spending and living beyond our means.

If we need examples of this within the UK, just look at the majority of professional football clubs living beyond their means, spending way more than their income in a desperate big to be successful. Even successful business models can become too old, or improved, just look at Habitat and Ikea. Habitat is in administration, as Ikea learnt to do a similar thing better, cheaper and smarter. In the same week Moben and Dolphin kitchens in administration too!

Sorry folks, but bad financial times are coming, so better we all pay now, that later when the damage will be greater. The rich will always find a way of getting a lot of their wealth off-shore, as have the means to do it. It will take strong leadership to get us out of this Global crisis, but sadly all we have is politically correct parties bowing to public opinion, rather than doing what is in both the country’s and public’s best long term interest.

Cutting out a cancer when it is small can often save a patient, leaving it and hoping radio therapy will avoid an operation is how the EU seems to be treating Greece. If in doubt, cut it out!

Yes, I, we are right to be fearful of the economic backlash of letting Greece go bust, but fear of another recession is not a reason to go on spending on a lost cause. We will all survive another Global recession, but may not survive a Global crash that could lead to a breakdown of society and the rule of law. I say we cut our losses and be grateful for having food on the table and a relatively free democracy. What say you?
Tweet

Mark Austin Pointing To A Dangerous Pothole

As a result the press release said the Asphalt Industry Alliance’s Chairman Colin Loveday is called on the UK Government to invest now to prevent further damage and an ever increasing repair bill. The same press release stated that “Three years of severe winter weather have revealed the fragile condition of the local road network, with road surfaces around the country deteriorating visibly to a serious degree.” More worryingly it goes on to advise that “authorities continue to report an annual shortfall in the highway maintenance budget they receive from central government. This year it amounts to £895 million, an increase of 12 per cent on last year’s shortfall.

Asked to estimate the level of one-off investment needed to get their roads back into reasonable condition local authorities estimated that £10.65 billion (aggregated across England and Wales) would be required. This is an increase of £1.15 billion on the amount estimated last year. Under funding of highway maintenance programmes is believed by 90 per cent of local authorities to create a threat to road user safety.”

AIA Chairman, Colin Loveday, highlights the industry’s growing concern: “Local authorities are doing what they
can, but reactive maintenance – such as simply filling potholes when they appear – is at least 20 times more
expensive than planned preventative maintenance.

“The annual shortfall in budget has increased this year and spending review cuts translate to a potential loss of another £440 million over the next four years. The additional £200 million announced in February and March 2011 is welcome but if the government wants to save the country money it should be investing in local roads now to save a massive repair bill later on.”
Potholes are often a sign of more serious underlying problems, says Loveday: “After several years of wetter winters and serious summer flooding which undermines the integrity of the road’s structure, our local road network is at its most vulnerable.”

I for one agree that “We have to keep up the battle against this blight which damages cars and risks road safety, especially for those on two wheels.” Hopefully Buckinghamshire County Council Highways Agency will take note of these facts and lobby the Coalition Government for funds to fix our dangerous and ever more costly roads, as always it is us taxpayers that pay the price, I recently had to yet again replace a front tyre at my expense due to pothole damage. Whenever the local County Council and District Council Elections come round, I suggest us voters should all make permanent repairs to our High Wycombe District and Bucks Highways a main campaign priority as to who we end up voting for and why!
Tweet

A Gloomy Airport Departures Board

The upside is that here in the UK we can now more appreciate National Express, bus and coach travel, our railways, and ferry services, as these have been the only means of travelling any distance. It also shows us how much our country, economy and lives depend on air travel, so hopefully it will be appreciated more, along with our bus, coach, rail and ferry services in the future.

My family are extremely grateful for being able to get home safely and on time and do feel for the tens of thousands in Europe who are stranded and who face a difficult task getting to where they want to be. I for one do tend to take our environment for granted, so it is a reminder to us all that it does not take a lot to upset the planets equilibrium, and that you can not beat nature!

I can only hope that all the Council Tax we pay to South Bucks District Council and Wycombe District Council will get them to liaise with the Buckinghamshire County Council Highways Agency to make resolving this totally unacceptable situation an absolute priority. The suspension to my own car had to be fixed recently, so I know what is is like to hit a deep pothole in the dark, partcularly where there is no street lighting and the headlights of the car coming towards you masks your view of the road infront of your vehicle!

Consequently, I decided to see what I/we could do about it and went on to Google and typed in “Potholes Compensation”. The top two generic links that came up were for “What Car?” and “Potholes.co.uk”. Both these landing pages are worth a visit if you want to know how to claim compensation if your vehicle has been damaged by a pothole?

The potholes.co.uk website offers drivers a step by step guide to potholes, contact details for your local council, how to claim, find potholes, report a pothole, ask advice and the facts about potholes.

The What Car? website has a very helpful brief summary of “what you should do if your car has been damaged by poor-quality roads, here’s what you need to do to claim compensation.

• Take a picture of the pothole, including something which shows the size of the damage to the carriageway.

• Take pictures of the surrounding area to show that there’s no warning of the damaged road (such as warning signs, cones or bollards), and take pictures of the damage to your car.

• Get a garage to prepare a quote for the repair work and, hopefully, corroborate your claim that the damage was caused by a pothole.

• Report the road and car damage to your local authority’s highways department, and submit a claim for compensation covering the cost of repairs.

• Ask the highways department if the carriageway damage has been reported before and, if so, when. Ask why it has not been repaired” (Source an article dated 23rd March 2007 on the News page of the What Car? website)

So to ensure Buckinghamshire County Council’s Highways Agency, Wycombe District Council and South Bucks District Council all work together to repair our roads, make sure you claim if a pothole damages your vehicle. And in the ironies to end all ironies Bucks “council chief responsible for roads suffered two burst tyres after driving through a pothole. Buckinghamshire County Council leader Councillor David Shakespeare lost two tyres on his BMW while driving along Maxwell Road, Beaconsfield as the recent snow began to thaw.” (post by Oliver Evans on BFP Website 10/2/10)

Vote in our pothole poll about how many potholes you pass on your way to work!

Sadly, recent tragedies do prove that carrying out a fire risk assessment could indeed save lives. Earlier this month, Ed Davey for BBC News, London wrote an article on the BBC News website that should be a wake up call for us all called “Lives risked by cheap fire option” following a BBC London investigation.

The article expressed concerns that “across London vast numbers of buildings have seen traditional wooden window frames replaced with PVC plastic, including a block in Croydon which burned to the ground in 2007. These replacements had also been made at Lakanal House, in Camberwell, south London, where six people were killed when a fire ripped through the building, last July.”

Picture of the post fire damage at Lakanal House, Camberwell in 2009

From reading the article it does appear that the installation may not have been done properly, which was then compounded by a fire risk assessment not being carried out. It goes without saying that as PVC is plastic it will obviously melt in a fire, so it is important to ensure that if you do own a house with these windows, or are considering replacement UPVC windows because they cost less than hardwood or aluminium windows, that they are installed properly. In the article Chris Houston, a fire risk consultant, was quoted as stating that “any fire engineer will tell you PVC burns easier than wood.”

Every window material on the market place has advantages and disadvantages, so it really is important to ensure that the products you have or are going to have in your property are as safe as they possibly can be, given there is no 100% safe solution, as obviously wood also burns, and aluminium will also eventually melt in intense heat, although it does not give off the sort of acrid smoke PVC does when it burns.

The 2007 Croydon Residential Fire

Given that six people died as recently as July 2009 in London because of these factors, we should think seriously about not only what type of windows we have, but also how they are installed, and in essence carry out our own common sense fire risk assessment of where we live. When looking for replacement double glazed windows or energy efficient windows for an extension or new build project (which must comply with Building Regulations anyway), it is worth remembering that, in my view, cheaper is very rarely better, as in this precious life, one tends to get what one pays for and living in safety is something you can not put a price to.

David Miles, the Bank of England’s new resident expert on the mortgage and property market, may have announced the best news of 2009 so far. Positive news that will resonate around every home in the UK, and will surely instill confidence with estate agents across the land. If his comments are correct, the UK’s housing market has stablised and is set for recovery and mild growth. This sits in stark contrast to his report a year ago that claimed the economy was the worst it’s been for 20 years. Nationwide, the building society, supported the turnaround by announcing that housing prices in June rose for the third time in four months.
“It may be the case that we get what looks like a very sharp rebound over the next few quarters: one might interpret that as a V-shape but that doesn’t really tell you an awful lot about what the likely path of GDP growth will be,” Professor Miles said. “The prospect of a rapid return to growth doesn’t seem a highly probable outcome.”

Professor Miles knows how much

We’re just happy to finally see some prosperous news on the property horizon, and hope that it can be sustained. Hazlemere Windows is unequivocal in its support to the UK’s housing market, and feel confident that we can bounce back as one on the leading economies in the world.

Tommy Bone’s individual try for Ireland set up Ireland for a long overdue Grand Slam and helped write Brian O’Driscoll and his Irish Rugby Union team into the history books.  Ireland almost threw a winning position away with silly penalties and errors, especially when Stephen Jones drop goal gave Wales a 15-14 lead with 5 minutes remaining on the clock.

Nevertheless, Ronan O’Gara’s drop goal with two minutes to go won the match 17-15, Six Nations Championship and Grand Slam for Ireland, but only just, as had Stephen Jones last kick of the game penalty gone over, Wales would have won the Triple Crown and this marvellously entertaining International Rugby match, denying Ireland the Grand Slam.

A thrilling end to a enthralling Six Nations decider, and certainly one than all the long suffering Irish fans will not forget. My congratulations to Ireland’s Captain Brian O’Driscoll and all the Irish team for the success they deserve after so many near misses. As Lewis Hamilton proved during the F1 title decider in Brazil last year, last minute last gasp championship wins are still a win, and the history books will always record him as World Champion, the margin of victory in the end only relevant if you were watching at the time. Ireland will always be Grand Slam Champions of 2009, but having watched the final kick of the game at the Millennium Stadium fall yards short of the uprights, and Lewis Hamilton’s one point victory in Sao Paulo, I will not forget how close both these Championship wins were.

Guy explained to www.gatoday.com that the fire that bore down on his house was about 1200 degrees, hot enough to soften the metal but not melt it. Glass doors and windows in his house are all double-glazed. Some of the outside panes cracked in the heat. Next time he’ll add shutters!

“Through the double-glazed doors of his bedroom, Guy Williams watched flames roar around his home” whilst sadly all his three vehicles, plus the entire bush and every other home around him, all perished, with dozens of Australians losing their lives in this horrendous bush fire which apparently burnt at 1200 degrees centigrade. Even Guy’s balcony was constructed largely from steel so there was no timber to speak of for the fire to get hold of, so it clearly seems that Guy’s self built house saved his life.

The article goes on to explain that the use of aerated concrete blocks is not common in Australian houses. David Hallett, general manager of building advisory service Archicentre, says the market prefers the look of brick and tradesmen are used to working with it.

“The most cost-effective way our building industry’s found to build buildings is concrete slab, timber frame, pre-fabricated roof trusses, and traditionally a brick-veneer skin. Increasingly these days they’re leaning towards more lightweight cladding,” he says.

“Building code requirements (in Australia) are designed to prevent ember attack, and while the concrete blocks are a good product and Mr Williams’ design clearly worked, it’s more expensive for home owners to build a house to resist an inferno”, he says. All I can say is well done Guy!

According to BBC News the death toll has now reached 200 since the Australian bush fires started, and more tragic still, will rise further according to Australian Police. How and where people build their homes in Australia is very much in the spot light and shows how important building materials are when considering buying or building a property. Guy Williams was saved by his common sense and foresight and though sad today, will hopefully grow to be proud of what he achieved.

Having taken off his Airbus 320 from Laguardia Airport and been hit by a double bird strike, pilot Captain Sullenberger landed his plane in the Hudson River saving all 155 passengers and crew. The entire take-off, flight, bird strike and landing occurred in less than five minutes, so you have to admire the split second decision making and execution of a text book landing on water. Hats off to you Captain Chesley Sullenberger, not only do you deserve a medal, you’ll get one. Many many congratulations from all of us at Hazlemere Windows and well done indeed.