Written Answers to Questions
Wednesday 24 January 2007
House of Commons Commission
St. George Flag
Mr. Spellar: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission pursuant to the answer of 10 January 2007, Official Report, column 584W, to the hon. Member for Romford on the St. George flag, for what health and safety reasons access to the flagpole on Portcullis House is denied; and for how long it has been non-operational. [110519]
Nick Harvey: A recent health and safety report identified the following risks.
Access to the flag pole is by ladder but there is no safe means of passing the flag up the ladder; the flag raiser needs to climb over a ventilation duct; lighting is poor and there is no emergency lighting. In addition there are heavy hatch doors with no means of preventing closure and no harness anchorage points.
The flagpole has been used only once since Portcullis House was opened when it was found to be dangerous and it has been non operational since September 2000. Means of rectifying the health and safety risks are being looked into and when the costs are known a decision will be taken on whether to fly flags from this location. If it is decided to do so, the aim will be to complete the necessary modifications by summer 2007.
editor[at]recessmonkey.com
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No, Michael the architect!
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/portcullishouse/index.htm
the silver arrow said this on January 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I’m glad you flaged this one up.
Howler monkey said this on January 26th, 2007 at 6:09 am
It just goes to show that the Government is having difficulties raising standards
2Tall said this on January 26th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Surely they only ever wanted to fly a flag when someone important was inside?
Lobster Blogster said this on January 26th, 2007 at 11:30 am
if you ask me they’ve only half mast-ered the problem from the start.
GuinnessCream said this on January 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm