Didcot Power Station - events and incidents, ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[onthecushions]

Regarding the prohibition on the Army carrying out civilian demolition work, I wonder if this should be reviewed ?

Under normal conditions I do not feel it correct for the publicly funded armed forces to in effect compete with profit making civilian demolition contractors.

However I feel that the rules should be altered to permit of exceptions in truly exceptional cases, requiring perhaps the personal permission of the Prime mister or home secretary.

I remember the tale of a farmer colleague in Kent in 1987 after the great storm, with his country lane access blocked by fallen trees. The attending RE^▸ (Religious Education) officer asked him how quickly he wanted the road re-opened, 3 hours or 30 minutes!

OTC

[TonyK]

The repair of the Grand Western Canal was made considerably easier by the use of a Chinook helicopter. I believe it was offered gratis with the operation being done under the guise of a training exercise.

[Tim]

The SAS helped out the National Trust in air dropping bags of soil "as a training exercise" on the summit of Pen-y-Fan to  be used in repairing erosion damage. 

I know because as an 18 year old, I spent a week with a dozen others man-handing (with wheelbarrows and sack trucks) the bags from where they were dropped to where they were supposed to have been dropped. 

[TonyK]

Same old story - how many embassies did they blow up before they got the right one?