I have been following with interest, over several months, the process of replacing a lamp-post in a nearby street. The task was to remove an old concrete lamp-post and replace it with a new metal one, a metre or two away. You might think that is simple – install the new one, change over the wiring, and remove the old one. But it clearly involved several different activities:
Digging holes and filling them in
Installing the new lamp-post
Dealing with the electrical wiring
Removing the old lamp-post.
As each of these required different people, probably on separate contracts, it became a drawn-out procedure, with each step separated by one or more weeks:
- Digging hole for the new post
- Erecting the new post
- Filling in the hole. Now there was the old one still working, ane the new one, not yet connected. Before connecting it, there seemed to be some preparatory electrical work required. So we had:
- Digging out the hole again
- Preparing the electrics
- Filling in the hole. It was now ready for connection to be made. So:
- Digging out the hole
- Disconnecting the old lamp-post
- Connecting the new one.
- Filling in the hole
At least that was what I expected, and should have yielded the new one working and the old one not. Then it would have been a question of removing the old one and job finished. In fact the current situation is that we have two lamp-posts, neither of which is working. I am waiting for further developments. I wonder if it will be finished before the end of the year.
Update January 17 2019
The new lamp-post is now working, but the old lamp-post is still there. After the best part of a year, it is still waiting, like a number of others in this area, for the old post to be removed.
Jeremy Dale 