Dear Linda,
The UK police have no jurisdiction over such problems. It is your client who needs assurance. I have designed several public dials - including analemmatic dials of the same principle as those supplied by Sunclocks - without any problem. To suggest that there is really a serious danger from such things is (in my mind) ludicrous. Britain has recently endured over ten years of a government that sadly seems to have promoted the idea that if anyone has a problem then it must always be someone else's fault, that the more obsessive aspects of Health and Safety protection practice must be followed and above all has promoted the lunacies of political correctness - much of which is actually neither political nor correct. Thankfully, and of course aided by a financial cut back in all sectors, these issues are getting addressed as we speak. Having said this there are some sensible aspects to be mentioned. Unless you have professional indemnity insurance of your own I think you should ensure that you notify your client that you are not insured against your own professional mistakes but will quote for making a model beforehand that may be tested and the final design, based on that model, accepted before proceeding to commit to the final construction. For analemmatic dials you simply need to adhere to the principles of paving flatness that Councils themselves adhere to. What other uses the locals put the dials to is nothing to do with you. A large horizontal dial that I designed for a small town centre in Northumberland was of 12m diameter with a long tubular gnomon. At about 5am on the morning after the official opening a lager lout was spotted at the top of the gnomon by the local police. Undoubtedly this sort of thing happens and you should ensure that the strength of the components of any such dial can handle this type of misuse. But the Client's (here the Council's) Public Liability Insurance will cover any resulting mishap. Regards Patrick -----Original Message----- From: Linda Reid <[email protected]> To: sundial <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Jul 12, 2010 3:38 pm Subject: Do the Police really object, to interactive 'Human Sundial' features? Dear Members of this 'Mailing List', I am a mosaic artist, based in the United Kingdom - and am currently working with a local Community Arts organisation on a project, plus one part of which is to be a proposed "Sunclock" ('Human' Sundial). We were intending to obtain a customized set of layout plans, from "Modern Sunclocks" (in Scotland) - but it seems that they require a 'disclaimer' letter from us, acknowledging that we fully understand all the implications of creating this feature in a public location. They directed us to a page on their website, which details what can happen - that specific page is: www.sunclocks.com/pics/fs-015.htm Those 'negative' aspects are outlined at the top of that page, and they also said that Planning Permission might not be approved - due to objections raised by local residents, plus 'Police' authorities. I then had a brief discussion with a local Police Community Liaison Officer, who said that he fully appreciates why "Modern Sunclocks" were just being honest with us - plus that some interactive public features would be likely to attract 'undesirable' people, who "take it over" as theirs (so discouraging people who we want to use it). Is this really true, that what we think should be a very colourful, functional and interactive 'Human' Sundial - will eventually become a feature which actually the local population do NOT want to have? "Modern Sunclocks" were very helpful - and said that they could sell three times as many sets of plans, if only they did not have to warn customers about the 'implications' (based on many years experience). Do the members of this 'List' have any comments (good or bad), about installing such interactive sundials - since we do not want to go to the time and expense of creating this, if local people do not really want it. Most people said they would be happy, (although we did not mention any of those negative factors, when conducting short "market research" - because we were totally unaware of them, at that time). I shall very much look forward to receiving feedback, on the above. Sincerely, Linda Reid. -- --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
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