Greenwich Gas Holder
Terry has sent me a copy of Gaslight, the newsletter of the North West Gas Historical Society, which proves that the rest of Britain is worried about the future of our fabulous gas holder, even if Greenwich Council seems not to be.
Of course there used to be two of them . The one that's now gone was the largest in the world when it was built, but the one that remains is no less important, and - I'm nailing my colours to the mast here - should not be elbowed out of the way by a school that has no business on the Peninsula in the first place.
Perhaps if councillors and local scaremongers had actually made a bit more effort in their own schools they might be able to wrap their minds around why this gas holder poses no threat to any community - by its very construction it is as safe as gas can ever be.
Mary Mills (gosh, I'm mentioning her a lot today - it's completely coincidental...) talks about the history of the gas holder in her book Greenwich Marsh - The 300 Years Before The Dome (currently out of print, but badger her to revise and reprint) so I won't go into detail here, but it's worth remembering that gas holders are iconic in their design - a step-change away from the traditional curlicues and over-ornamentation that many Victorian Public Good Works had - and towards minimalism - it was built to impress with its sheer size and efficiency, not fancy ironwork.
But back to the safety. The way I understand it is this. Gas explodes when it's in contact with oxygen, but it HAS to be a special, extremely subtle mix of the two (a Stoichiometric Mixture, if you want the correct term - look it up on Wikipedia and you'll get some fabulously boffinesque equations which I'm sure mean something to someone.) This is very rare indeed - so rare that most of the time gas in the atmophere just burns - which is why it's good to use as a fuel.
What those clever Victorian dudes did, was to cut-out the air entirely. As the gas is used, the holder gets smaller, making sure that there's only ever gas in there - not air, which means that if there's ever a problem - for example a tile falling off the outside - if a little gas escapes and if it's exposed to a spark, it burns. It doesn't explode, and is easily put-out. In fact, this happened all the time during WWII bombings - the gas burned for a while; it was extinguished and resealed. There was never enough air in the mix to make it explosive. All the time gas is coming out of any perforation, there's never a mixture.
The supposed unsafeness of Greenwich Gas Holder is an excuse that's being used for political reasons, using fake science and scaremongering to get a result expedient for those who have other axes to grind. The movement of John Roan School is a political hot-potato, but to bring in a Victorian gas holder that has been safe for well over a hundred years and will continue to be so is merely moving the pawns around the board instead of tackling the major pieces.
Of course there used to be two of them . The one that's now gone was the largest in the world when it was built, but the one that remains is no less important, and - I'm nailing my colours to the mast here - should not be elbowed out of the way by a school that has no business on the Peninsula in the first place.
Perhaps if councillors and local scaremongers had actually made a bit more effort in their own schools they might be able to wrap their minds around why this gas holder poses no threat to any community - by its very construction it is as safe as gas can ever be.
Mary Mills (gosh, I'm mentioning her a lot today - it's completely coincidental...) talks about the history of the gas holder in her book Greenwich Marsh - The 300 Years Before The Dome (currently out of print, but badger her to revise and reprint) so I won't go into detail here, but it's worth remembering that gas holders are iconic in their design - a step-change away from the traditional curlicues and over-ornamentation that many Victorian Public Good Works had - and towards minimalism - it was built to impress with its sheer size and efficiency, not fancy ironwork.
But back to the safety. The way I understand it is this. Gas explodes when it's in contact with oxygen, but it HAS to be a special, extremely subtle mix of the two (a Stoichiometric Mixture, if you want the correct term - look it up on Wikipedia and you'll get some fabulously boffinesque equations which I'm sure mean something to someone.) This is very rare indeed - so rare that most of the time gas in the atmophere just burns - which is why it's good to use as a fuel.
What those clever Victorian dudes did, was to cut-out the air entirely. As the gas is used, the holder gets smaller, making sure that there's only ever gas in there - not air, which means that if there's ever a problem - for example a tile falling off the outside - if a little gas escapes and if it's exposed to a spark, it burns. It doesn't explode, and is easily put-out. In fact, this happened all the time during WWII bombings - the gas burned for a while; it was extinguished and resealed. There was never enough air in the mix to make it explosive. All the time gas is coming out of any perforation, there's never a mixture.
The supposed unsafeness of Greenwich Gas Holder is an excuse that's being used for political reasons, using fake science and scaremongering to get a result expedient for those who have other axes to grind. The movement of John Roan School is a political hot-potato, but to bring in a Victorian gas holder that has been safe for well over a hundred years and will continue to be so is merely moving the pawns around the board instead of tackling the major pieces.
Labels: Debates
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:36
6 Comments:
Actually, it is the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that deems it unsafe to build within proximity to a gasholder.
It's not scaremongering per se, just one of those regulations that happen to exist... "Rules is rules."
And, don't forget - as long as the gasholder exists the developer can't build a lot of things down there i.e. because the HSE won't let them. So, for the Council and private interests, making the gasholder a disproporionately big deal for a school is rather a useful foil.
And, I have to say, it's not apparent to me that those opposed to the move of John Roan to the Peninsula overstate the gasholder issue. In point of fact, those opposed to the move cite quite a number of things... like pollution (noise and air), access and travel safety, gross lack of space, etc.
I think you'll find that the Council has been spinning the story in the hope that the gasholder has become the the major and ONLY issue. Actually, it seems one of the lesser issues to me. By implication the Council is trying to plant the notion that none of the problems with the site even matter.
7000 square metres for 1600 kids on the Peninsula is just plain stupid. 26000 square metres in place of the inspiring (?) David Beckham Academy probably wouldn't be quite so objectionable to the John Roan campaigners.
So now I expect that somebody will say that such a large plot is unreasonable and unattainable. But I don't see why it should be. Surely it's no less desirable than the existing 26000 square metres.
The Council's single-minded pursuit of redevelopment land serves nobody well, not the school, and not those rightly interested in trying to preserve some of the borough's history.
Well I type a response to the OP and its disappeared into the ether...
I was in Dublin recently and I believe that as a part of their docks renovation there is a gas holder that has been transformed into some swanky glass walled office space.
In Leipzig they have transformed one of their old gas holders into an Art space and project continuous photo panaramas on the inside walls. They change the exhibit a few times a year and involve a lot of schools in their projects.
If you check out the newsletter you can see the Dublin Cas Holder. If it can't be kept as a gas holder, this is deffo the funky alternative.
I believe that the rules that the HSE are working to have been revised and revisited following the Bunsfield accident (you'll remember the huge explosion and the black cloud of smoke that even reached London). There a oil plant, that was thought to be safe, had become surrounded by housing and offices as no controls were placed on development. Now it is clear that such development should and would not be permitted in future. Having seen the police and fire brigade presentations on the explosion there is no way that you would want to have the kids and housing near by!
As for the comment about the DBA - it is a temporary structure that is only there while Ken decides on the Silvertown Crossing!
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