Smoking outside Staffordshire Place

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
I walked through there this morning, could barely get through the sea of people and haze of nicotine emanating from Council workers hanging about, puffing away. I'm not a smoker and to be honest I don't really have a problem with those who are (its their choice if they want lung cancer or not) but I find it hard to believe this is the "image" Staffordshire CC want outside their shiny new, very expensive flagship head quarters. Obviously it would be inappropriate (and illegal) to allow smoking within the offices but surely when building the thing they must have thought that a number of their staff would want somewhere outside to smoke like a designated shelter or something. Letting hoards of staff hang around the entrances looks truly terrible and gives the impression that they must have nothing better to be doing.

Also whilst on the subject of the already crumbling Staffordshire Place, I thought the scaffolding around the building was supposed to be being removed around the end of January and yet it seems there is now MORE scaffolding and netting (a lovely green colour) around the building then ever. Is it falling down?
 

speak65

Well-Known Forumite
Hubby was in over the Christmas period and a huge bit of something fell off flew past his window in the high winds.
He did tell me what it was, but I am bored of hearing about it, so didnt listen properly.
I think the scaffolding may be up for a fair while.
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
I have heard from a few people who work in the "state-of-the-art-money-saving-not-falling-to-bits" building and they say it is horrible to work in. The building is either too hot or too cold, there are leaks all over the place and the cladding is falling off to mention just three problems.

It appears to have been a complete and utter shambles from the start. You cannot even use the revolving doors to enter the building because it broke the first time it was used.
 

1JKz

Well-Known Forumite
shame that the problem with falling tiles is eating away at the savings made from being cost effective/efficient!

as for the smokers, it's the way of the World i'm afraid it's either that or back to the old backwards days of having to put up with smokers in the building, i'd like to see smoking banned full stop but then it generates far to much money for that to ever happen.

Can the SCC afford a smokers underground lair that isn't ventalated? perhaps? umm.

MPO people, MPO!
 

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
57 mph, I'm afraid I don't agree. Considering this was a brand new development there was a choice that Staffs CC could have made regarding smokers - they could have factored into the design some sort of designated outdoor / ventilated area for their workers who want to smoke to go to. Truth is it looks as if they overlooked this or chose not to bother and as such are stuck with fag breakers hanging about around the entrance. It doesn't look good.

Agreed on the quality of the build which is looking more and more dodgy as time goes on. As you say it must be eating into their "savings" from moving staff out of other offices as they are always at pains to point out. I hope for Council Tax payers sake they are getting the issues with the building sorted at the developer's expense.
On the subject of the projections for savings Staffordshire CC claim, I would be interested to see in the coming months/years whether they do actually save as much as they claim they will. My thoughts are that they will struggle to do so as much of their on paper savings are dependent on getting a decent return on selling/redeveloping their other office sites around the town. I know it is early days but this doesn't seem to be happening yet
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
bigbluewolf said:
I have heard from a few people who work in the "state-of-the-art-money-saving-not-falling-to-bits" building and they say it is horrible to work in. The building is either too hot or too cold, there are leaks all over the place and the cladding is falling off to mention just three problems.

It appears to have been a complete and utter shambles from the start. You cannot even use the revolving doors to enter the building because it broke the first time it was used.
Personally I'm OK with working there. Sure, the building has its (lengthy list of) problems, but then so have all five of the buildings I've worked in since I've been at the council, most notably the air-conditioning which in two of the buildings was reminiscent of the Russian steppes at around this time of year.

Regarding the revolving door, I understand a contractor tried to take something through it that maybe they shouldn't have.
 

johnny come lately

Well-Known Forumite
Do people still get smoke breaks? And do people who don't smoke get non-smoke breaks? I remember working in a pub in my youth and moaning because my fellow staff would pop out every few mins for a puff while I had no excuse...apart from toilet, drink, crisps
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I used to go out and stand around chatting to the smokers, much to my bosses displeasure but there wasn't anything she could do about it really.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Couldn't they go up on the roof? That'd be quite cool. Especially on a day like today, brrr.
 

arthur

Nixon Garden Neatness
I thought that was what all the round balls were for - seating area for the smokers
 

ben0239

Well-Known Forumite
Does any one know if the rooms on the ground floor are going to be used for Retail units and if so what??

With regard to the Smoking issue, I hate to see smokers outside buildings, because like someone has previously said it does make the place look untidy and undoubtedly you always get the odd smoker who thinks its ok to drop there fag ends on the floor. To the visitors of staffs C C this will surely give them a negative impression of the time. Surely there must be a better location of where these smokers can go where they wont be in the publiuc view.
 
5

52.8N-2.1W

Guest
Aren't the smokers worried about getting hit by falling debris?
 

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
52.8N-2.1W said:
Aren't the smokers worried about getting hit by falling debris?
Not now there is debris proof green netting protecting everyone. The County Council have pulled out all the stops to ensure that the Council Tax paying public are protected from masonary flying off their poorly constructed building through the use of super strength nets
 

ExiledInStaffers

Well-Known Forumite
Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt said:
57 mph, I'm afraid I don't agree. Considering this was a brand new development there was a choice that Staffs CC could have made regarding smokers - they could have factored into the design some sort of designated outdoor / ventilated area for their workers who want to smoke to go to. Truth is it looks as if they overlooked this or chose not to bother and as such are stuck with fag breakers hanging about around the entrance. It doesn't look good.

Agreed on the quality of the build which is looking more and more dodgy as time goes on. As you say it must be eating into their "savings" from moving staff out of other offices as they are always at pains to point out. I hope for Council Tax payers sake they are getting the issues with the building sorted at the developer's expense.
On the subject of the projections for savings Staffordshire CC claim, I would be interested to see in the coming months/years whether they do actually save as much as they claim they will. My thoughts are that they will struggle to do so as much of their on paper savings are dependent on getting a decent return on selling/redeveloping their other office sites around the town. I know it is early days but this doesn't seem to be happening yet
I tend to agree about smoking provision. A new building should provide facilities for smokers for as long as smokers are legally allowed to smoke. Even if the reason for doing so is that they can hide the area away from the entrance and ban smokers from congregating outside the office. Which is what has happened at my (private sector) office. You also would have thought the new CEO of Stafford CC would consider this, since he is a smoker I believe.

I also assume the building is under some form of warranty, but the usage of "Council Tax payers" is a bit emotive really. The vast majority of funding for councils come from central government, not from Council Tax. Therefore really, the whole of the UK tax payers paid for our new buildings. And since there are more tax payers outside of Staffordshire then in it, you could conclude that the vast majority of funding did in fact come from Non Staffordshire Tax Payers, not Staffordshire Council Tax payers. Just a thought....
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
I'd say the majority of people who will be walking around the "new-but-falling-to-bits building" will be Council Tax payers. If they own or rent a property then they will no doubt pay Council Tax and most likely they will live locally.
 

1JKz

Well-Known Forumite
Withnail said:
Couldn't they go up on the roof? That'd be quite cool. Especially on a day like today, brrr.
in there lies the answer, well said Withnail.

Out of sight out of mind, and if there is any fag butts dropped it's on the roof, again out of sight out of mind, except for those who choose to smoke up there.
Surely a small space on the roof space can be tweaked to house these people?

...health and safety no doubt plays a part in 'smokers' being up on a roof smoking til their hearts content.
 

ExiledInStaffers

Well-Known Forumite
bigbluewolf said:
I'd say the majority of people who will be walking around the "new-but-falling-to-bits building" will be Council Tax payers. If they own or rent a property then they will no doubt pay Council Tax and most likely they will live locally.
That statement is a fact, but their council tax did not pay for the building, so really the statement could just equally apply to any group of people. For example the majority of people walking past the building eat meat, or drink tea, or in fact anything unrelated.
 

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
ExiledInStaffers said:
bigbluewolf said:
I'd say the majority of people who will be walking around the "new-but-falling-to-bits building" will be Council Tax payers. If they own or rent a property then they will no doubt pay Council Tax and most likely they will live locally.
That statement is a fact, but their council tax did not pay for the building, so really the statement could just equally apply to any group of people. For example the majority of people walking past the building eat meat, or drink tea, or in fact anything unrelated.
The point is that anyone walking past the building eating drinking or whatever can do as they please, they may not be County Council employees. The smokers that I saw congregating around the front doors clearly were CC employees as they had their I.D. lanyards hanging around their necks. It is therefore different.
The reason they are there smoking and not somewhere else say for example a designated smoking shelter or area is because Staffs CC forgot or didn't bother to provide one when they commissioned the build - thus the fact that staff are doing this and considering it doesn't really look great is squarely the County Council's fault.

There is essentially no difference that I can see between the hoards of CC staff I saw standing around smoking in groups and generally blocking the (at the moment much reduced) gangway and groups of kids who hang about their local shop in groups and often get vilified for doing so
 
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