The new 36kw electric furnace heating system has now been installed in the Tenbury Regal, and is reported to be running 24 hours a day.
I wonder if anyone has done the maths?
The Council are currently paying about 19p per kwh. So flat out the heating costs £6.84 per hour, £164.16 per day or £4,924.80 per month.
Off course, it won't be running at capacity all the time, but sobering figures none the less.
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16 comments:
I wonder if consideration was given by the Town Council to how this new electric boiler would fit in with and accomodate any modifications
made to the building as part of the Heritage Lottery bid renovations or whether it was simply a quick fix with no future planning? Is the 24 hour running of the boiler necessary to keep the Regal warm enough for its various uses? Won't this be prohibitively expensive?
Also, just as a matter of interest, has anybody been held responsible for the fiasco over the replacement of the old kerosene boiler with one of the same design, subsequently banned by the HSE?
I think it was intended to be a quick fix and an alternate may be installed as part of the wider renovation.
Regarding the 'held responsible' all been discussed in private session and not disclosed so don't know.
I am pleased that we have heating in the Regal. I do feel sorry for the council sometimes, they do their best and perhaps if more people were proactive things would improve. Its very easy to criticise.I would be very suprised if there is not some form of thermostatic and time control on the system. It may be more efficent to keep the heating on instead of trying to heat the building from cold each time its used
I am sure that there is a thermostat of some sort. I have only highlighted this as several people raised it with me as a concern. All the Council's decisions about the Regal Heating were made in meetings that the press and public had no access to so we don't know what was considered and what wasn't. Studies have shown it is never more efficient to leave a heating system running all day. The Town Council (or rather us the tax payers) were hit with a massive bill when the Heating System was left running at the Pump Rooms for months last winter between the time the Council took possession and moved in. I just hope that the situation is being monitored and not just left until they (us) get hit with a very large electric bill.
The comment "...if more people were proactive things would improve" is interesting. Could anonymous give any examples of what he or she has in mind?
anonymous is talking common sense
it ok for criticising all the time which does not help matters
How should one communicate with the Town Council? If you email or write, it is very unlikely that any Councillor will read the letter, unless it is highlighted as important by the Clerk or the individual Councillors take time out to visit the Clerk during office hours and read through the incoming correspondence.
If you address the monthly meeting, there is no response as it is simple that. You are addressing the Councillors.
If you speak to individual Cllrs then there is no guarantee that they will have the opportunity to discuss the matter in Council unless they raise it as an agenda item for a future meeting, and the attendance record of some Cllrs is far less than 100%.
With regard to the heating, most of the meetings were held in private so it is impossible to establish what was and wasn't considered. The Council provide little in the way of feedback. Their minutes (if made public) are very 'sterile' and are published weeks after the event.
The press releases passed to the local paper only spin the positive and the paper rarely challenges anything. Central Government is almost always brought to book by the media rather than any opposition party. At a local level the media does not scrutinise the Council, this can only be done by the Public (and some Bloggers).
Many of the Cllrs are co-opted and this process is now carried out entirely in private and even the names of the prospective candidates are no longer published.
Accounting figures are published in such a way that it is impossible for anyone outside the Council to be able to follow them, indeed many of the Cllrs struggle to understand them.
Money is spent with little regard in some areas, yet in others where a little money could be spent to good effect they rely on amateur assistance or try and do the job in house with predictable results.
I often find myself at third party meetings standing up for the Council as I probably have a better knowledge than most about what they are doing and why. (I have probably attended more Public meetings than any Cllr in the last two years as Cllrs very rarely sit in on committee meetings where they are not directly involved)
By writing this blog, I know my thoughts and concerns and those of other residents who leave comments are read by some of the Cllrs, and until the Council have their own open feedback system, I can't think of a more efficient way of communicating. But if you disagree, let me know.
At a Council meeting tonight it became clear that the Cllrs have no idea how much this heating system is going to cost to run. Also the system has been running full time since installation as no one knows how to turn it down. I am also told (but this is not confirmed) that there is no thermostat other than on the boiler its self to stop the water getting too hot. The Town will be paying the Capital cost of this boiler until 2019.
After the accounts are filed, there will be a time when any resident can question the District Auditor about the Town Council's accounts. This is when residents can ask detailed questions. For example, they can ask "Was the website put out to competitive tender?" and "Why did Town Council decide to NOT use the FREE website provided by Worcestershire County Council - see:
http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/MyParish/OtherMeetings.aspx?ParishID=40&PostCode=WR158TD&Prop=237&partner=mhc&marriedto=0
Interesting to see in the paper that speculation about the cost of the heating is considered unhelpful by the Town Clerk. I guess us the paying public should keep quiet and pay whatever price our betters consider is reasonable. Never mind that the cost of the heating was not considered to be important enough to estimate before installation, and that running the system full blast for a month is reasonable. What planet are they on? Having run up a huge gas bill at the Pump Rooms when is wasn't even being used you would think they would have learnt their lesson.
Should we believe what we read in the paper? Isn't the Clerk's job to serve the Council, not give speculative comments to the paper?
Once again (4/1/10) the Town Council chose to discuss the Regal Heating in private session under an item entitled "Update of Regal heating in relation to meter change" How this falls within the remit of dear old Section 100(1) is anyone's guess. Perhaps it was to hide the embarrassment of why the meter still hasn't been changed and the electricity being consumed by the new boiler at an alarming rate is still being charged at a very high tariff.
The problem is that the agenda never says why the press and public are to be excluded and the Town Clerk’s view (as publicly expressed by her at a Council Meeting) is that if anyone wishes to know why, they should ring her and ask! This isn’t good enough and makes people (maybe unjustifiably – who knows?) suspicious. If the Council wishes to exclude the press and public it should give a clear reason – i.e. what it is about the matter to be discussed that makes it inappropriate for it to be dealt with in public session? And, of course, that reason can’t just be any reason – it has to be one allowed by statute. Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 details the types of information that might lead to a Council excluding the press and public. “Embarrassment” isn’t one of them.
So far as the boiler running costs are concerned: that information will probably be buried in the global energy costs for the Regal and Community Centre.
Has anyone ever attempted a Freedom of Information Act application in order to obtain more facts?
When I was having resistance to providing me with a copy of the accounts, I suggested to the Council that I converted my request to a Freedom of Information request, and this was enough for me to obtain the documents.
The Regal now has a new electricity meter and has been moved onto a lower tariff. I think the heating is still costing in the region of £70 a day. Only time will tell if I'm barking mad, or close to the mark. Provided of course the true cost isn't hidden.
The Council still haven't received the electricity bill, but feel that it is unlikely to exceed £265 (Did I mishear or are they completely mad) Still there is the option that it is me that is completely deluded and my estimate of £75 per day is way off the mark. Guess time will tell.
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