We have become risk averse in this country and it has grown on the back of excessive and over zealous “Health and Safety”. Often this is as a result of small minded people using H & S to give them the buzz of power; it is not unheard of that something is prevented on the grounds of H & S legislation when in fact no such thing exists. A recent example is that the good ladies of a Yorkshire village created some bunting to bedeck their village to honour the start of this year’s Tour de France; their bunting was banned in case it got wet and threatened to dislodge or damage the street lights it was tied to. Street lights, I ask you!

On the other hand people do need to be prevented from being stupid and from putting others into dangerous positions. A window cleaning company in Bath was heavily fined last year for allowing their employees to clean the outside of windows by standing on the window ledge, on all levels.

The houses opposite us have lovely old chimneys (see Day 172) that occasionally need to have the chimney pots resecured to the brickwork of the chimney stacks. This requires a large scaffold tower and platform for access, these houses are on four floors plus a cellar. Given last year’s window cleaning case and the building of substantial scaffolding I was surprised to see this today.

8 July 2014