{"id":42,"date":"2012-06-08T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T17:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bunker13.co.uk\/b13\/?page_id=42"},"modified":"2021-02-23T19:14:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T19:14:21","slug":"news","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bunker13.co.uk\/b13\/news\/","title":{"rendered":"News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Latest News 2021<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

It is now more than 7 months since Brannen and Partners, under instruction from the Residents Management Company, instructed Bunker 13 to stop their ongoing maintenance and comprehensive internal and external inspection regime of the Grade II Listed World War Two Bunker in the grounds of the Central Grange Estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our dehumidifiers had to be removed leaving the internals of the structure at risk of further deterioration. There is no regular monitoring of water ingress and checking the pumps put in place by the Management Company to prevent this happening.  This is of great concern to Newcastle City Council Heritage department also who are undertaking periodic inspections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason cited for preventing Bunker 13 access was stated as health and safety concerns.  Despite Bunker 13 having a H&S professional consultant as one of our directors and our repeated requests for any information on the risks identified by them no details have been provided.  The one concern we do have is regarding the electrical system which has not been inspected\/tested for a number of years and thus until inspected this remains a potential fire risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe enough time has now elapsed for any H&S issues to have been addressed and so we will be asking for access by Bunker 13 to the Bunker to resume our caretaking role. This in turn would mean the process of seeking funding for the restoration project could start once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, our preservation activities have been STOPPED as the Residents Management Company refuse to engage in constructive discussions with us or anyone about the future of the bunker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We remain concerned that H&S concerns are being given as a smoke screen to keep the bunker disused mothballed and rotting away to save short term costs and feel this is a very short-sighted plan as the costs of repair required to a listed building once allowed to deteriorate will sadly fall on the Central Grange Residents. We are also concerned that as we are not undertaking our regular security inspections the Bunker is at high risk of break in and anti-social behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will keep you informed as to the management company\u2019s response to our request to once again be granted access to act as caretakers of the bunker and restart the bunker project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latest News July 2020<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is with much regret Bunker 13 must announce a breakdown in communication between The Central Grange resident\u2019s management company (The Kenton Management Company)<\/u><\/strong> and their chosen residential management agents Brannen & Partners<\/u><\/strong> who manage the development on their behalf. This has led to Bunker 13 being locked out of the bunker simply due to their total refusal to communicate with us. Totally unnecessary when a simple meeting could have solved all alleged health and safety issues and we could have moved forward working together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of being prevented access moving forward, we were forced to remove our dehumidifiers from the bunker which were preventing further damage to the original fixtures and fittings also consequently our internal caretaking work has stopped. This is of EXTREME concern as the flood prevention pumps within the bunker that were fitted after the catastrophic flooding of approx. 7 years ago, now require urgent attention. The most important pump failed last week just prior to us being locked out. The emergency battery backup system is also not functioning for these pumps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last flooding of the bunker happened when the previous management company took the same action preventing us from monitoring internal conditions within the bunker. Let us hope for the sake of the bunkers historic original interior this doesn\u2019t happen again but also for the residents of Central Grange who are responsible for footing the bill for pumping out the building and costly repairs to a Grade 2 historic building. The last pumping out was carried out F.O.C by T&W Fire service but they stated they would not be able to do it again for free. The costs at that time would have been approx. \u00a3400 per fire tender per hour and we had 8 tenders on site for a period and at least 4 tenders all day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rest assured we are doing all we can to regain access to the bunker and continue our preservation work however this is a serious setback that has far reaching implications to our ability to continue with funding applications potentially halting the whole preservation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To any residents of CENTRAL GRANGE<\/u><\/strong> reading this we will keep you informed about A NEW RESIDENTS<\/u><\/strong> group being formed. We have heard many of you are not happy with the management company not listening to your concerns and issues we have found this ourselves please support the new group. This new group will make sure your voice is heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support Letter for Bunker 13<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Generous Donation<\/h1>\n

Last week the nice people at https:\/\/www.cleva-uk.com\/<\/a> donated a wet and dry vac and some air movers to the bunker. I popped in over the weekend and assembled said vacuum. It appears to be a quality piece of kit so a vacuuming session was called for. Did a load of the floor in the front stairs really quickly and the results were impressive. Then I decided to try it on some of the plasterboard walls that were covered in dried up mould. The results again were extremely impressive with almost no trace left behind.
Tried the mould round the plotting room viewing gallery windows, but, due to the angle I was trying to vac at and the matt black paint the results were slightly less impressive but still good.
Decided to deploy the air movers as well to help the dehumidifiers and once again the results are impressive for such compact units. So if your looking for Quality Vacuums and air movers checkout www.cleva-uk.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t