Mitie has retained the street furniture cleaning and maintenance contract with Transport for London (TfL). The five-year deal is valued at over £16m. This is the second time that Mitie’s transport team has retained the contract, having originally won it in 2004 and keeping it in 2008. The TfL contract
London Mayor and Tory leadership wannabee Boris Johnson wants rogue operators in the private rental sectors to be banned with repeat offenders given steep fines – and in particular he says he wants letting agents to be more transparent on fees. He also wants a public database of criminal landlords,
A mother and her young son were put at risk of suffering carbon monoxide poisoning for seven years at their home in Ashton-under-Lyne, a court has heard. The woman’s landlord, Rent4U Ltd, of Manchester, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an inspection of the gas boiler
A company that constructs extensions to houses has been fined after incorrectly working on gas flue, potentially putting lives at risk as harmful could have seeped back into the house. Southwark Crown Court heard how, between June 2013 and June 2014, Wedgewood Design and Build Limited of London, was building
R&M explains the new generation of Power over Ethernet (PoE) / Avoiding cable temperature increases / PoE calculator aids network planning / Tips for product selection and installation Wetzikon, London, September 8, 2015. R&M, the globally active Swiss developer and provider of cabling systems for high-end, powerful network infrastructures, is
Mitie has retained the street furniture cleaning and maintenance contract with Transport for London (TfL). The five-year deal is valued at over £16m. This is the second time that Mitie’s transport team has retained the contract, having originally won it in 2004 and keeping it in 2008. The TfL contract has enabled the team to increase by 25 members taking the existing workforce to over 50 people. Mitie’s transport team is based in south London in its own 3,500m² warehouse, which is the hub for its operations. Every year the team cleans 19,000 bus stops, installs 165,000 posters and timetables, cleans 6,000 traffic light control units and 7,000 bus shelters (with a further 4,000 to be added now). The cleaning includes the removal of graffiti from all of TfL’s street furniture. They also clean TfL’s eight River Piers. Mitie’s transport experts also work for major airports and bus and train companies around the UK and have built up an impressive team that focuses on the ‘passenger experience’. Colin Marshall, Mitie’s transport director, said: “Every passenger journey matters to us and we focus on assisting TfL to make every journey as safe and pleasant as possible.” Bob Forsyth, managing director of Mitie’s cleaning business, said: “Every day TfL carries six and a half million passengers around London and our dedicated team plays a vital part in this huge effort. We are committed to investing even more into this strategic contract in the years to come.” Yesterday, Mitie was given preferred bidder status by Rolls-Royce for the FM of its UK and specific European properties. Subject to contract, this will be one of Mitie’s largest pan-European agreements and will mark the continuation of a relationship with Rolls-Royce which began in 1992 with the provision of a single service in the UK.
London Mayor and Tory leadership wannabee Boris Johnson wants rogue operators in the private rental sectors to be banned with repeat offenders given steep fines – and in particular he says he wants letting agents to be more transparent on fees. He also wants a public database of criminal landlords, increased practical support for tenants bringing private prosecutions, more control by the London Assembly over landlord licensing schemes in the capital. The statement comes in Johnson’s response to the government’s consultation into how to improve the private rental sector, which across Greater London is thought to constitute around 40 per cent of all households. The demands – made in a story in London’s Evening Standard giveaway newspaper – also includes a demand by Johnson’s deputy mayor, Richard Blakeway, for a “more formal role and powers” for the London Assembly. “This is in the spirit of not placing additional burdens on good landlords but strengthening London-wide efforts to eradicate bad practice by landlords and agents” he says. A 16-page document has been posted on the website of the Department of Communities and Local Government, and announced through the Twitter accounts of the DCLG and housing minister Brandon Lewis – this is what Johnson and his team are responding to. The DCLG document says the government is considering blacklisting serial offenders – including letting agents – in, for example, these circumstances: – Offender has been convicted (or sentenced) in the Crown Court for any offence involving fraud, violence, drugs or sexual assault which was committed at any residential premises which the offender (or a person associated with him) owned or was involved in the management of and which neither he, nor the associated person, occupied as their main residence; – Offender has been convicted (or sentenced) in the Crown Court for any offence that was committed against or in conjunction with any person who was residing at the residential premises owned by the offender (other than a person associated with him); – Where an offender has been found guilty on two or more occasions of a relevant housing offence (whether in the magistrates’ court or in the Crown Court).
A mother and her young son were put at risk of suffering carbon monoxide poisoning for seven years at their home in Ashton-under-Lyne, a court has heard. The woman’s landlord, Rent4U Ltd, of Manchester, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an inspection of the gas boiler at her home found it was in a condition classified as ‘immediately dangerous’. Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard that the firm failed to arrange an annual gas safety check at the terraced house on Marlborough Street between 2007 and 2014. The court was told that Rent4U had previously been served with two Improvement Notices by HSE in 2013 after failing to arrange annual gas safety checks at two other properties. Rent4U Ltd, of Christie Way, Christie Fields, Manchester, was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £7,000 in prosecution costs after pleading guilty to two breaches of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.
A company that constructs extensions to houses has been fined after incorrectly working on gas flue, potentially putting lives at risk as harmful could have seeped back into the house. Southwark Crown Court heard how, between June 2013 and June 2014, Wedgewood Design and Build Limited of London, was building an extension across the full width of a house at a property at Greenside Road, West London. The extension work required the gas flue to be repositioned. This involved extending an existing gas flue which was boxed into a void, meaning there was no way of examining the flue. Also, an incorrect type of pipe was used for the flue. Wedgewood Design and Build Limited, of Ballards Lane, London was fined a total of £9,000, and ordered to pay £7,500 in costs after pleading guilty to an offence under Regulation 8 (3) of the Gas Safety(Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. For more information about gas safety log onto the website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/domestic/
R&M explains the new generation of Power over Ethernet (PoE) / Avoiding cable temperature increases / PoE calculator aids network planning / Tips for product selection and installation Wetzikon, London, September 8, 2015. R&M, the globally active Swiss developer and provider of cabling systems for high-end, powerful network infrastructures, is preparing planners and installers for the introduction of 4-pair Power over Ethernet (4PPoE). The new generation of power supply via local data networks (remote powering) should enable a supply of up to 100 watts, which is four to five times greater than the current rate. The corresponding standard IEEE 802.3bt is currently in progress. 4P PoE allows more powerful terminal equipment to be supplied with energy via network cables. Parallel power cabling is therefore no longer required. However, the twisted-pair copper cables heat up during the supply process, leading to an increase in attenuation. This must be taken into account from the very beginning of a cabling project, which in turn poses new challenges when installing data networks. In a recently published White Paper, R&M provides information on the physical backgrounds. The document contains practical information for network planners and installers on how to prevent the cables from suffering critical temperature increases, thereby avoiding the resulting loss of power in the structural cabling when using 4-pair Power over Ethernet. The document explains the standardized formulas for calculating the temperature increase in cable bundles: http://www.rdm.com/en/co/service/downloads/white-paper.aspx At the same time, R&M is introducing a specially developed PoE calculator, which takes into account all relevant factors, such as cable types and ambient air temperature. The maximum link length of the cabling and the appropriate cable categories can be determined by entering just a few values into the spreadsheet: http://www.rdm.com/en/co/service/planungshilfsmittel/power-over-ethernet-calculator.aspx Background: Developmental step forward with Power over Ethernet For Power over Ethernet (PoE), which was introduced 15 years ago, IEEE 802.3bt represents another step forward: Terminal equipment will be supplied with at least 55 watts, and potentially up to 100 watts, rather than 13 or 22 watts. In future, PoE will need to use all four twisted pairs in the network cabling for this transfer of energy, which is the reason for the name 4-pair Power over Ethernet (4PPoE). The structured cabling systems are therefore not only used to transport data at an Ethernet speed of 10 Gigabits, but numerous powerful IP terminal devices, such as cameras, monitors, wireless access points, and point-of-sale terminals, can also be supplied with energy via the local data network. The trend for an increased use of Power over Ethernet would also support the Internet of Things. Many small sensors and control systems could be run from remote locations in buildings without additional power cabling. A consequence of using 4PPoE is that every twisted pair in the network cabling has a current of between 650 and 1100 mA, depending on its power. This is a significant increase in load compared to pure data transfer. Due to physical losses, the cables and cable bundles heat up as a result of the energy transfer. According to R&M, a long-term temperature increase of 10ºC can halve the expected service life of the cable, due to the increased aging of the material. This temperature increase must also be limited for fire and occupational safety reasons. Higher temperatures increase the copper resistance and the attenuation of the signal transmission, which reduces the potential length of a link. The cable temperature increases resulting from the energy transfer can increase the attenuation of a cable to such an extent that data transmission becomes impossible. It is therefore important to factor in these temperature increases when planning a cabling project. R&M advises that thick cable bundles and heat build-up in cable channels be avoided. It is recommended that larger conductor cross sections and/or shielded cables be used for longer cabling links, as they do not suffer such significant temperature increases. Alternatively, the distances (link lengths) can be reduced. R&M also advises the use of modules and plugs with insulation displacement technology; this technology creates stable connections between the cables and connecting contacts that are similar to soldering joints. The widely distributed piercing technology penetrates only the insulation of the copper cables and creates a loose contact, which with live connections may in the worst case cause a fire. Another problem may arise when using Power over Ethernet if contacts are damaged by small arcs when disconnecting while live. When the contact breaks, a spark is created that at high transmission powers can destroy part of the contact. If this happens in the contact area of the connection, the transmission properties may be permanently impaired. R&M recommends the use of plug connectors and connection modules that are designed to ensure a sufficient distance between the breaking point and the nominal contact area. http://www.rdm.com/en/co/products/power-over-ethernet.aspx
