Press release: Upcoming exercise at Worcester City Centre flood scheme

On Thursday 2 November, the Environment Agency will be carrying out an exercise at the Hylton Road flood defence scheme in Worcester city centre.

The exercise will allow the Environment Agency field operations team to test the barrier deployment process, while also carrying out essential maintenance to parts of the demountable flood barriers which are in the highway.

This will mean that there will be some disruption caused during the exercise as Hylton Road will be closed to traffic between 6:30pm and 8:30pm. The path by the river will remain open to pedestrians.

Barry Killner from the Environment Agency said:

Exercises like this are essential for us to test our procedures and ensure an effective operational response, so that we are fully prepared for when flooding does occur. We are also using the closure of Hylton Road as an opportunity to carry out essential maintenance on our flood barriers across the highway, reducing future impacts to the businesses and residents.

Cabinet Member with Responsibility for the Environment, Councillor Tony Miller said:

Testing the processes and carrying out essential maintenance of our flood barriers, can only be a positive thing for the county. It contributes to the county being able to continue to function as normal as possible, during bad weather, lessening the impacts on the local residents and institutions such as schools and businesses”.

Link: Press release: Upcoming exercise at Worcester City Centre flood scheme
Source: Environment Agency

Press release: Foreign Secretary statement on Kurdish/Iraq tensions

The Foreign Secretary spoke with both Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government Nechirvan Barzani and the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Sunday afternoon. He urged both parties to seek a quick, peaceful resolution within the constitution to the current Kurdish/Iraqi tensions and reiterated the UK’s continued support to the Kurds within a unified Iraq.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:

Last night, I spoke to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani. I encouraged both to continue to de-escalate the situation on the ground in Iraq and to avoid misunderstandings that could lead to conflict. The UK welcomes the willingness of the Government of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government to engage in dialogue on the basis of the Iraqi Constitution. The UK encourages both sides to agree a timetable for talks.

The UK remains committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of Iraq and will continue to support all Iraq’s people, including Iraq’s Kurds, within a unified Iraq.

It is also critical that all parties continue to focus on the fight against Daesh, prevent its re-emergence and work together to rebuild liberated towns, villages and lives.

Yesterday, Masoud Barzani also retired from the office of the President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We welcome the opportunity this presents for leadership of the Kurdistan Region to pass to a new generation of Kurds. They must build strong democratic institutions and resolve the historic differences between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Government of Iraq consistent with the Iraqi Constitution. They will have the UK’s full support.

The Government of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government have been staunch allies of the UK in recent years as we have jointly fought the scourge of Daesh in the region. I want to pay tribute to former President Barzani’s leadership in that fight, to his years of service to the Iraqi Kurdish people and to the role he played in the formation of modern Iraq.

Further information

Media enquiries

For journalists

Link: Press release: Foreign Secretary statement on Kurdish/Iraq tensions
Source: Gov Press Releases

Press release: Social housing regulator publishes Fees Statement

The Regulator of Social Housing has published a Fees Statement today (30 October 2017) and held its first Fees and Resources Advisory Panel (FRAP) as part of its commitment to be open and transparent with the social housing sector.

The Fees Statement outlines the regulatory priorities for 2018 to 2019, the associated budget breakdown and the fee per social housing unit. It also sets out background information on the regulator’s role, its approach to regulation and the measures it will apply to its work.

The Statement was discussed at the inaugural FRAP meeting on 24 October with representatives nominated by sector umbrella bodies and individual stakeholders. Attendees included representatives from Chartered Institute for Housing, g15, g320, Homes for the North, National Housing Federation, Placeshapers, Tenants Participation Advisory Service, and UK Finance.

Julian Ashby, Chair of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) Regulation Committee said:

While the regulator is accountable to Parliament for the delivery of its statutory objectives, it is important that we are transparent with stakeholders in relation to the fees we have started charging and the quality of the regulation that we deliver.

The annual Fees Statement supports our commitment to transparency. The twice yearly Panel meetings are alongside our extensive stakeholder engagement and will ensure an appropriate geographical, sectoral and stakeholder coverage of views. I hope these steps demonstrate our determination to deliver value for money regulation that supports our ability to retain investors’ confidence in the sector.

The Fees Statement; the FRAP membership and Terms of Reference and fees guidance for registered providers is available on the HCA regulation website.

Further information

  1. The consultation on fees is available on the website.
  2. Funding for some aspects of the regulation function, such as reactive regulation including consumer regulation, will be continued through government grant in aid.
  3. The Homes and Communities Agency is the single, national housing and regeneration delivery agency for England, and is the regulator of social housing providers. As regulator, its purpose is to promote a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs. It does this by undertaking robust economic regulation, focusing on governance, financial viability and value for money that maintains lender confidence and protects the taxpayer.

For more information visit the HCA website or follow us on Twitter.

Our media enquiries page has contact details for journalists.

For general queries to the HCA, please email mail@homesandcommunities.co.uk or call 0300 1234 500.

Link: Press release: Social housing regulator publishes Fees Statement
Source: Gov Press Releases

Press release: Report 15/2017: Serious irregularity at Cardiff East Junction

Summary

Over the Christmas and New Year period from 24 December 2016 to 2 January 2017, Network Rail carried out extensive resignalling and track remodelling work in and around Cardiff Central station. This was the final stage of the Cardiff area signalling renewal scheme, a project which has been in progress for several years. This stage involved the closure of the power signal box at Cardiff, with control of the signalling in the area moving to the Wales Railway Operating Centre (WROC), and changes to the track layout and signalling on the east side of Cardiff Central station.

Some of the new layout was brought into use on 29 December. At 08:37 hrs on that day, the driver of a train from Cardiff Central to Treherbert, which had just left platform 7, noticed that points in the route his train was about to take were not set in the correct position, and stopped the train just before reaching them.

The points at which the train stopped were redundant in the new layout, and should have been secured in readiness for their complete removal at a later date. The project works required eight sets of points in two separate locations to be secured. In the event only six of the eight points were secured, and the line was re-opened to traffic without the omission having been identified by the testing team through the normal checking processes which should take place as part of this type of work. The two sets of points which were missed were left in a condition in which they were unsecured and not detected by the signalling system, and the points at which the train stopped were set for the diverging route. If the driver had not noticed the position of these points and stopped, the train would have been diverted on to a line which was open to traffic, on which trains can run in either direction, and on which another train passed over about three minutes after the train involved in the incident came to a stop. The new signalling system uses axle counters for train detection, and in this situation the system would not have immediately identified that the train was in the wrong place.

The points had been left in this unsafe condition because they had not been identified as requiring securing by the team securing points during the works. Furthermore, no one had checked that all the points that needed to be secured during the works over the Christmas period had been. Route proving trains, a performance and reliability tool used to ensure the system was working correctly before running passenger services, had been cancelled.

The investigation also found that a work group culture had developed between long standing members of the project team that led to insular thinking about methods of work and operational risk. This meant that team members relied on verbal communications and assurances. An underlying factor was insufficiently thorough project governance and a possible underlying factor was ineffective fatigue management.

In this case, no-one was injured and no damage was caused by the event, and Network Rail acted quickly to secure both sets of points.

Recommendations

RAIB has identified four learning points and made three recommendations. The learning points relate to the need for testers in charge to be able to confirm that all redundant wiring and equipment has been checked; the need for each intermediate state in which the railway is to operate before completion of the scheme to have an up to date and correct signalling scheme plan reflecting the true state of the layout; the need to mitigate the effect of cancelling route proving trains at the end of commissioning works; and the need to carefully consider the value and purpose of team briefings relating to large scale works to avoid people being overloaded with superfluous information.

Three recommendations have been made, all directed to Network Rail. The first relates to the need for good project governance to ensure a project complies with guidance, procedures and processes to enable the railway to be handed back after works are completed in a safe state in order to resume operational service. The second is concerned with document management systems, and the third recommendation deals with fatigue management for people working on projects and commissioning, recognising that fatigue in the workplace needs to be managed and mitigated, not just the risk of workers suffering fatigue while travelling to and from their place of work.

Simon French, Chief Inspector of Rail Accidents said:

This alarming incident, in which a train came close to travelling down a track that would have put it on an unprotected collision course with other trains, serves as a timely reminder of how easily things can go wrong when railway infrastructure is being upgraded and renewed.

It happened very close to the end of a huge engineering project, to renew the track, signals and train control systems over a large area of south Wales. Thousands of people worked hard on that project, many of them over the Christmas and New Year period at the end of 2016, and they delivered the renewed railway on time – a great achievement. But over the years that the project had been in progress, some bad habits had crept in. Well-meaning people were taking each other’s word that things had been done, instead of insisting on seeing the proof. The end result, in this case, was that no-one checked that redundant points, due to be removed altogether in a few days or weeks, had been locked in the correct position. Good project governance includes making sure that the right procedures are in place and that people follow them, at all levels, all the time. We have concluded that the project governance arrangements, and the processes that should provide Network Rail with assurance that these are being followed, need a thorough review in the light of what happened at Cardiff.

It is also important, when organising intensive periods of commissioning work, to properly manage the working hours of the people doing the job. Back in 1988, the disastrous collision at Clapham Junction happened in part because working for weeks on end without any days off was part of the culture in some areas of the railway. Rightly, things have changed a lot since then. However, the events at Cardiff showed how easy it is to forget the lessons of Clapham and slip back into those habits under the time pressures of a big commissioning.

RAIB is now investigating the collision at Waterloo on 15 August this year, which also took place during the commissioning stage of a large and high-profile project involving track and signalling changes. We will again be looking closely at how such projects are managed, and whether the lessons learned from the tragedies of the past are still being applied effectively on today’s railway.

Notes to editors

  1. The sole purpose of RAIB investigations is to prevent future accidents and incidents and improve railway safety. RAIB does not establish blame, liability or carry out prosecutions.
  2. RAIB operates, as far as possible, in an open and transparent manner. While our investigations are completely independent of the railway industry, we do maintain close liaison with railway companies and if we discover matters that may affect the safety of the railway, we make sure that information about them is circulated to the right people as soon as possible, and certainly long before publication of our final report.
  3. For media enquiries, please call 01932 440015.

Newsdate: 30 October 2017

R152017_171030_Cardiff_East_Junction

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Link: Press release: Report 15/2017: Serious irregularity at Cardiff East Junction
Source: Gov Press Releases

Press release: New guidance to ensure victims of domestic abuse can access safe social housing

New guidance to ensure victims of domestic abuse can easily access safe, long-term accommodation is published today (30 October 2017).

The guidance, which is subject to a 10-week consultation, makes it clear that local authorities should treat victims of domestic abuse, currently in safe accommodation such as a refuge, as a priority for social housing. It also makes clear that those victims who have fled to refuges in other parts of the country should not be disadvantaged in accessing social housing.

In addition, local authorities are being encouraged to use their existing powers to help victims of domestic abuse to remain safely in their own home without their abuser, if they wish to.

Communities Minister Lord Bourne said:

Domestic abuse is a devastating crime with complex challenges that extend far beyond the boundaries of local authorities.

That’s why we’re committed to providing local authorities with the robust guidance they need to improve victims’ access to long-term and secure housing they need to rebuild their lives.

The guidance comes during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and is one of a number of measures the government has introduced to ensure that those who have to flee their homes due to violence have the specialist support they need to rebuild their lives:

  • In March 2016 we confirmed £80 million of funding to 2020 to combat violence against women and girls. In the March 2017, we announced a further £20 million for this work, bringing the total funding up to £100 million over the Parliament to support victims
  • In November 2016 we launched a £20 million fund over 2 years for specialist accommodation based support and service reform in local areas. As a result we were able to help 76 projects in England, creating more than 2,200 bed spaces and giving support to over 19,000 victims

We will shortly be introducing a new landmark Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill to protect and support victims, recognise the life-long impact domestic abuse has on children and make sure agencies effectively respond to domestic abuse.

The guidance published will build on and clarify existing guidelines which encourage local authorities to make exceptions to the residency tests and give appropriate priority to the most vulnerable in our society.

The government has also been considering the recommendations of the joint report on the future of supported housing produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions. It will be publishing its response to this on Tuesday 31 October 2017.

The Prime Minister announced earlier this week that as part of our response to this review we will not be applying the Local Housing Allowance cap to supported housing.

Further information

The consultation will be open until 5 January 2018.

We recently confirmed plans for a new generation of council and housing association homes through a further £2 billion funding boost bringing investment in affordable housing to over £9 billion.

Office address and general enquiries

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Media enquiries

Link: Press release: New guidance to ensure victims of domestic abuse can access safe social housing
Source: Gov Press Releases