It Appears That Nature Decided To Teach Derbyshire County Council Health And Safety A Lesson!

in how not to mess with it! some time ago I mentioned how the H & S fanatics decided to cap the stones that ramblers and tourists use to cross the River Dove, rather than leave them as they had been for hundreds of years, (made famous by Izaak Walton in his 17th century fishing book, The Complete Angler), for a view of the councils safety and beautification policy compare the view above,

to this one as the crossing is now, I should say was, nature took a turn at events and washed three of the stones off of their pedestals to form a dam and create a flood, well done Derbyshire County Council! the toppled slabs helped to form a dam as debris was swept downstream, causing the river to flood and the area to be closed to the public - on safety grounds, guess what? showing how good the councils maintenance record is one of the newly replaced cap stones is still unstable, what a poor performance 1 in 3 jobs failed!

after waiting days for the waters to subside so the workmen could cement the slabs back in space, the council admitted one of them is still 'unstable and could be a potential danger' they wanted to have the stepping stones open to the public for half-term this week when visitor numbers are high, but that is not possible as one has been found to be unstable still and in need of more work, their best effort just not good enough, but I still say it, if something has worked well for literally hundreds of years why spoil it and make it unusable when before H & S intervention it never closed a day in it's life?