Well on New Years day our last renters for the season vacated our lodge and we finally shut up the place for the winter break. On arriving at Fallbarrow, the maintenance staff (yes they were on duty on New Years Day) were runing around trying valiently to unfreeze the mains water supply to several caravans on site. The calls were coming in from desperate owners who I assume had been in their caravans overnight but had still been the victim of a frozen water supply. Thankfully (according to staff) the lodges on Fallbarrow are imune to such freezing (well ours is anyway). I was also informed that WXB and Limefitt were experiencing similar problems.

This freezing of water pipes does remind me of one of my earliest posts and several letters to Graham Hodgson (remember him?) when I made the case that many units and certainly the caravans were unsuitable for use during the extended season. However, it would seem that this issue is not actually due to the caravans, it is the actual feed to the units which must be the responsibility of SLP. Whilst it is accepted that extreme weather will cause disruption to services, there is also an obligation on SLP to do everything reasonably possible to prevent loss of services such as water. For those who do rent out there is potential loss of income if services are subject to disruption.

On a more positive note, in addition to the new jetties at Fallbarrow, we have been promised an upgrade to the electricity power supply. This hopefully will enable new lodge power supplies to be fitted (currently they are only 20 amp and should be as a minimum 60 amp, ideally 100 amp - or so I am told) which will get over many of the irritating power cut offs when using more than one appliance.

So we are looking forward to the 2009 season with new jetties, new power supplies but most importantly a new fair contract (more of which in a future blog post).

Regards

Fallbarrow
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