Many extruders and double glazing manufacturers like Hazlemere Window Company obviously hold stocks of double glazing profiles which the new legislation is rendering obsolete after 30th September 2010. Had the industry had more notice it could have run down its stocks over a sensible period of time. In addition, companies with double glazing showrooms will have to replace all the products that are being discontinued if they are to on display products which comply with the new more thermally efficient requirements of Part L which come into force on all windows and doors installed on or after 1st October 2010.

Regardless of if a company is a double glazing manufacturer, supplier or installer, each individual business immediately faces the moral dilemma of whether or not to advise each of their customers that the majority of them have bought products for their homes which will no longer be available from 1st October 2010. It was a no brainer for the family owned and run Hazlemere Group who last week sent letters to every single one of their customers informing them about the implications for UK property owners of the Part L changes, along with an explanatory information leaflet on how these major legal revisions to the Building Regulations will affect home owners. Fortunately the Hazlemere Group have been manufacturing, supplying and installing energy efficient energy savings windows since 2007, so are geared up for the challenge, with a wide range of BFRC and Energy Saving Trust approved “A”, “B” and “C” energy rated double glazed windows.

Since sending the mailing, Hazlemere Windows received calls from customers wanting to order windows and doors of the same specification and finish they already have had fitted in their properties. Given the short time frame, it could well end up being the case of first come, first served, as double glazing manufacturers can only survey, fabricate and install a finite number of double glazed windows and doors between now and 30th September 2010, the last day products can be installed which only comply with the existing Building Regulations, but which do not comply with the new ones that come into effect on 1st October 2010.

Download a PDF of a Part L 2010 Changes Information Factsheet

Hazlemere Window Company Marketing Director Mark Austin in Wellington Road Bucks

However, he concludes, in his own article on potholes published on 9th April 2010 on the Bucks Free Press website by asking “how long are we all going to allow our roads to put us and our cars in peril, and how long are we going to allow ourselves to be ashamed of our own county? Oh, and by the way, council tax went up this month.” (Steve Cohen, editor, Bucks Free Press). Click on the following link if you would like to read his entire article entitled “This is not a trivial issue – how long do we have to suffer the potholes?”

Steve says he has received many letters from concerned residents in South Bucks about potholes and is surprised Bucks County Council have yet to really permanently address the deteriorating situation. He published my letter to the Bucks Free Press newspaper on the BFP website under the title of “Potholes could lead to accidents and deaths“.

Anyhow, I must acknowledge Steve for taking this relatively serious pothole matter so seriously, and commend him for writing such an impressive and perceptive article, plus for granting us permission to use the above photo taken in Wellington Road on Cressex Business Park, High Wycombe, Bucks, where Hazlemere Window Company have their head offices, main factory and 4,000 square foot showroom. Thank you Mr Cohen, it is much appreciated. Let us hope the Bucks County Council Highways Agency and the other local authorities in South Bucks (i.e. Wycombe District Council, Chiltern District Council and South Bucks District Council) act to repair all the potholes and put together a proper programme to re-surface our roads very SOON!

Hazlemere Window Company Ltd’s Managing Director, Stuart Braham has written to Bucks County Council Highways Agency to complain about the awful state of Wellington Road on Cressex Business Park, where Hazlemere Windows, Doors and Conservatories have their head offices, main factory site and 4,000 square foot home improvement showroom. In his letter, Stuart drew the attention of Jim Stevens, Head of Transportation at Bucks County Council Highways Department (based at King George V Road, Amersham, Bucks, HP6 5BL) to the 3 previous complaints Hazlemere Windows have made since November 2009 about the deteriorating condition of one large section which runs across the entire width of Wellington Road, about 40 yards from the junction with Lancaster Road.

Wellington Road is in constant use by driving instructors and learners drivers as the local test centre is located at the bottom of the road, meaning that learner drivers (as well as heavy goods lorries, company vans and private vehicles), are constantly having to run the gauntlet of an ever increasing number of potholes in this section of the road. As no repairs have yet taken place, even since the snow and ice in January 2010, these potholes are simply getting wider and deeper, rather like the thousands of others you can see dotted around the roads in Buckinghamshire!

I did get an email response back on 29th March 2010 from my email to Paul Goodman MP for High Wycombe which stated “Dear Mr Austin I’ll look into this and will advise accordingly. Yours sincerely, Paul Goodman MP” I also got a letter dated 30th March 2010 from the MP for Beaconsfield, Dominic Grieve QC MP, which confirmed my letter had “been passed to Mark Rowe, Service Leader, who will arrange for a response to be sent”. So, although we still await any action, we have now at least had an acknowledgement that the authorities are aware of the growing number of voters who are dissatisfied with the dangerous state of Buckinghamshire’s roads, as many potholes are potentially damaging to vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians alike!

Part of Wellington Road Breaking Up Cressex Business Park High Wycombe

Mike Linley, Chairman of the Asphalt Industry Alliance was quoted as saying “Extreme winter weather would not cause so much damage if our roads were fit for purpose. The consequences of our under-funded roads maintenance are now writ large. These include compromised road safety and wasted time as road users are held up by unplanned roadworks.”

According to the Henley Standard “Oxfordshire County Council is carrying out a £1m programme of road repairs to fill an estimated 5,000 potholes a month.” Geoff French, Vice-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers is quoted as saying “There is an estimated £1 billion road maintenance backlog, meaning many roads have been in need of proper repair for a very long time.” Oh how true. Another media report last week said that road works for things like gas, electricity, water and telecommunication etc. destroy the integrity of the original road service and cause it to lose an average of 30% of its lifespan. This on-top of one of the worst winters for 30 years has exposed this practice as an ineffective solution, as well as the massive under funding in road investment.

Geoff French further commented in the Henley Standard (26/3/2010) that “We need long-term, preventative road maintenance to properly address existing defects rather than short-term quick fixes that fail to tackle the root of the problem. Quick fixes will only lead to more maintenance work, more cost and the public becoming more frustrated.”

I have written to High Wycombe MP Paul Goodman and Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve requesting they intervene with Buckinghamshire County Council Highways Agency Department to address the dreadful deteriorating dangerous state of the roads in South Bucks. I have noticed letters about potholes becoming more frequent in local newspapers like the Bucks Free Press and Henley Standard, so lets hope more road users write to them, as well as to their local MP to put public pressure on getting our roads back on track, as at the moment too many of them are more like farm tracks that the infrastructure that the UK residents expect, pay for and deserve.

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

All I seem to see in Beaconsfield and High Wycombe in Bucks are more potholes emerging, whilst existing potholes get larger, wider and deeper, which is not ideal for the daily commute!

As I could not understand why Bucks County Council are not seemingly taking more urgent action, out of pure frustration and lack of comprehension I wrote a personal blog entitled Do the growing number of potholes on our roads drive you potty?

To be honest it may just be me, or maybe every other driver on the road is enjoying the challenge of “pothole slalom” to avoid the worst crevasses. At night, when following another vehicle it is sometimes impossible to miss a pothole “hidden” by one’s headlights, the dark and the vehicle in front, but hey ho, we are British so we put up with it!

In all seriousness, the dire state of our roads, especially as they are getting worse, not better, must surely be of serious concern to all vehicle drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Travelling to work at our factory and showroom in Wellington Road in High Wycombe is now more like an adventure ride with motorists constantly swerving round potholes, so as to try to protect their tyres, wheels, suspensions and hub caps, which occasionally results in them closely missing other oncoming vehicles.

Why do us Bucks County Council Tax payers put up with the state of our roads? I just do not understand why we do? Obviously if it is not an issue for others, then fine, but our roads are for use by everyone, so hopefully, we actually do all want them repaired and safe?

It seems to me that the roads in Bucks will continue to crumble until someone in authority provides Bucks County Council’s Highways Agency with more funding and empowers them to systematically repair all the network. Lets hope they agree that accident prevention is better than cure?

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

According to the press, there are dozens of towns and villages in Buckinghamshire that will be potentially affected along this £17bn high speed rail scheme, including those with properties in Denham, Chalfont St.Peter, Chalfont St. Giles, Seer Green, Beaconsfield, Amersham, Great Missenden, Wendover, Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Hartwell and Quainton to name a few. According to page 4 of the Bucks Herald on 17th March 2010 “Construction on the line could start in 2019. It would take about seven years to build, meaning it would not be operational until at least 2026.”

I do feel terribly sorry for Bucks home owners who live along either the preferred route through the Buckinghamshire countryside, as well as those along the alternative route, as until settled, residents who had planned to sell will probably find it harder to do so and will therefore be reluctant to carry out home improvements in order to assist any future sale. Conversely, if Bucks property owners along these proposed routes know now they may end up being “stuck” where they are for many years, they may decide to fit double glazing to insulate their homes against future noise pollution from high speed trains, so as to maintain a high a quality of life as possible, both now and in such circumstances.

According to the Bucks Herald “Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has endorsed the recommendations of High Speed Two Ltd. which was set up last year to come up with the scheme.” Frankly, whatever politicians tell us now, whichever party is in government after the next General Election is likely to build a high speed rail link from Birmingham to London, so let us all hope that they do it in the least disruptive way, reaching an early final decision if it is going ahead to release Buckinghamshire home owners from the current position of “not knowing”.

What I believe this country needs is strong leadership, living by example and long term stability. Will the General Election deliver this? Sadly, I don’t think so. In the Bible, Proverbs 14v4 states “Where there are no oxen the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.” (New International Version). Some bible commentaries say this passage shows that “considerable distrubance is the pre-requiste for growth.” In olden times unless there were a) oxen and, b) people who used oxen to plough up the ground, seeds did not get sown properly and there was no decent growth and little or no crops.

One thing oxen do is cause a mess in the stall, plus they require daily feeding and cleaning up after, hence if there are no oxen “the crib is clean” (The Message), as there is nothing to clear up. In my view what this country needs is leaders and people who will be unselfish oxen and do the work of an ox for the sake of others. Will this cause a bit of a mess…probably, but would we rather have long term economic and political stability or no growth and no harvest?

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!

In addition Graeme Wilson points out that “Thousands of homes have no double-glazing, “security defects” and lack modern kitchens or bathrooms.” The article expresses genuine concern that “More than 10,000 houses for our heroes are in a WORSE condition now than a year ago. As many as 9,000 service homes lack proper showers, while 6,000 have wiring nearly 40 years old.”

Surely our service men and women deserve to live in decent accommodation, especially at a time when so many are tragically losing their lives for their country in Afganistan and Iraq. Lets hope the publicity highlighting the problems will cause those in authority to act to rectify this situation immediately!

Of more concern to homeownersk, the article goes on to say that “It is understood that Government advisers The Energy Savings Trust, wants it to becomes illegal from 2015 to put a home up for sale, which has a rating lower than band E.” Window Energy Ratings (WER’s) vary from A-G, with band A being the most energy efficient and band G the least energy efficient.

Hazlemere Windows offer a range of energy efficient windows that will address this potential problem, in a wide range of finishes, including wood grain effect UPVC. However, due to the extra metal strengthening that has to be added to PVCu wood effect windows, the highest window energy rating that can be achieved for a wood grain effect UPVC window is “B”. If you can live with, or prefer a white finish, you can install A rated windows in your property, which achieve the highest WER energy efficient rating there is…..”A”

Hazlemere supply and fit both “A” rated UPVC and “A” rated aluminium windows that achieve the highest energy efficient rating possible. So if your property has out of date glazing that is poorly insulated and letting lots of heat escape, save money by finding out about Hazlemere’s energy rated windows that will not only keep heat in more efficiently, and offer better insulation, but also reflect heat back, thereby cutting down on the amount of energy you use heating your home, which will in turn reduce your energy bills.