If it were up to me, the following would all be in the same trench:

Mains water
Electric
Gas
Telecoms/Broadband
Waste water (sewage)
Drain access


Why waste time always filling over these things with tarmac/concrete when they can be covered with heavy, non-accessible covers. Have them all on pavements. Problem? Lift a cover, fix and replace. A tenth of the time, little or no disruption to roads, and far less cost.

Of course, there's probably a thousand jobsworth excuses for not doing it that way, and perhaps a few decent reasons (electric and gas in proximity). What with them all being able to be plastic encased, there should be no risk. Especially if they aren't covered with tons of earth or concrete, and instead occupy a crawl space.

Ho hum.

Why waste time always filling over these things with tarmac/concrete when they can be covered with heavy, non-accessible covers. Have them all on pavements. Problem? Lift a cover, fix and replace. A tenth of the time, little or no disruption to roads, and far less cost.

Would make it much easier for those people who make their living from "borrowing" the copper cables from BT

In reply to a post by ian72:

Why waste time always filling over these things with tarmac/concrete when they can be covered with heavy, non-accessible covers. Have them all on pavements. Problem? Lift a cover, fix and replace. A tenth of the time, little or no disruption to roads, and far less cost.

Would make it much easier for those people who make their living from "borrowing" the copper cables from BT

And so much easier for a muppet in a JCB to knock out ALL the services in one go! Imaging trying to repair all the other pipes and cables with raw sewage all over the place

I know, why use a JCB if they are in a conduit, but you never know!!

Hence why I specified 'inaccessible' covers. Something very heavy, requiring specialist equipment to access it. Anyway, if it all got upgraded in the manner I suggested, there wouldn't be copper. Only fibre.

if they make the covers of a suitably heavy and robust material all that will happen is that the pikeys will nick those as well.

Not if made to be inaccessible. If heavy enough, and hard enough to access (specialist equipment), they will need to get hold of cranes or cherry pickers. I'm thinking concrete by the way, not metal.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Not if made to be inaccessible. If heavy enough, and hard enough to access (specialist equipment), they will need to get hold of cranes or cherry pickers. I'm thinking concrete by the way, not metal.

That doesn't sound as though it would make fixing a dodgy connection very cheap. Of any utility.

Cheaper than destroying and replacing existing pavement/roads. Less time consuming and no materials / trained workmen.

Sorry, my post was unclear. I was getting at the fact that many utilities can carry out a huge amount of work via existing manholes. Access cost effectively zero.

As I understand your proposal, these would not exist.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 04-Oct-11 16:23:15)

Cheaper than destroying and replacing existing pavement/roads.

debatable, a new gas main or sewer can be trenched into an area at fairly low cost compared to constructing a large underground chamber network. It's not like you need access on a regular basis to these things once they're in.

You might need "trained workmen" to lift your half tonne covers off, and the pikeys will either have the gear already (for scrap cars) or "obtain" it.