Corrie is fixing cobbles wobble - Job for the gaffer?

[henpecked]

Corries new street 'too hard to walk down in heels'
Im sure they were not meant for fashion Corie wobbles

[Carberry]

hundreds of drunken scottish munters manage to walk down the royal mile every weekend, maybe get some of them in to give them lessons?

[henpecked]

Ha ha ha! Some of the daft footwear around these days I'm not surprised .They only ever seem to go from cab to pub anyway

[Tony McC]

I know the people involved with the supply and some installation of those "cobbles" (which are actually setts) and the constant theme of discussion for the last 18 months has been that they were laid with overly wide joints, but the main contractor simply would not be told. The bits I've seen have joints close on 20mm - bloody stupid!

[GB_Groundworks]

I heard they were ordered to replicate all the low spots etc so they got the same puddles etc for continuity

Still could have done the other bits right though.

[Tony McC]

Not heard that about the puddles, but I know the company responsible for supplying the setts was orginally asked to match the previous to a T, but when it was explained that it's the laying that determines the appearance, the brief changed to 'cheapest'.

I've had a couple of journalists based in Lower Britain, one from a broadsheet even, ask me how authentic is the new 'Street' and if there are really any such sett-paved streets in and around Salford any longer.

I had to break the news to them that it's all made up, none of it is real, there is no Roys Rolls, no Kabin, and all those people they see umpteen times a week are what we call 'actors'. The setts (they are NOT frigging cobbles! Be told!) are just about the only authentic thing on view!

[mickg]

they should of used Marshalls Drivesys the original cobble system (formally know as cobbletech)

and you could of replicated the puddles quite easily by having a dip in the sand laying course and if you was not happy lift the blocks and change the dip to another position prior to the jointing being carried out

[lutonlagerlout]

always thought the brickwork looked "too" authentic on corrie on my brief views
as mick says cobbletech would have looked more real than what is laid
LLL

[mickg]

the best bit was Jack and Vera's stone cladding

[Tony McC]

I haven't watched Corrie or any soap for decades. Albert Tatlock was a bit of a goer the last time I saw the programme, so I've relied on photies shown to me by the sett supplier and one of the lads working on site who was pissed off that labourers had been used to lay the setts while he, a flagger by trade, was overlooked and given responsibility for keeping the site clean and safe.

But as pretty as DriveCobbleSysTech might be, the colours are too homogenous for back street Lower Broughton.

Didn't J&V's stone cladding kill off that industry more or less overnight? It was becoming really popular on the rows of back-to-backs in South Lancashire in the late 70s and then it just imploded. Over the last 10 years, there's been wholseale cleaning and re-building of those same terraced houses, restoring the Lancashire Commons to there former glory. The houses look so much better for it, but it's still akin to putting lippy on a gorilla!

[henpecked]

The thing about 'setts' :;): is that they still hold a place in peoples psyche. A 'proper road' comes to mind. Shame its a dark art and isn't employed more freely in projects (present company accepted Cookie )
This just looks like a bad ad for setts as a solution. They'll forever be '...those ones they had to relay in Corrie' from now on

[Tony McC]

It shouldn't be a 'dark art', though. I served my time learning the art and then the bitch decided in the early 80s that we didn't need trades, we were all going to be stockbrokers and games programmers, so apprenticeships and training was stopped

I've tried and tried and tried to get proper training re-introduced, but when you have the upper management at the responsible body, CITB, publicly stating that laying bogens, fans or even course work is a skill rated no higher than a Level 2 NVQ, what hope is there? I've called them fools in public, in print and I've said it to their faces.

If we do not provide training, our trade is wide open for exploitation by rogues and cowboys and we deny many lads and lasses the chance to earn a good living building pavements that will outlast our grandchildren.

[GB_Groundworks]

My rd and all connecting roads are all setts can see it at the edges where the bitmac has worn away or on the busier hill bit you can see the pattern of setts reflected in the bitmac surface

My rd looks like they are laid at 45 degrees to the kerbs

[KLS]

It shouldn't be a 'dark art', though. I served my time learning the art and then the bitch decided in the early 80s that we didn't need trades, we were all going to be stockbrokers and games programmers, so apprenticeships and training was stopped

I've tried and tried and tried to get proper training re-introduced, but when you have the upper management at the responsible body, CITB, publicly stating that laying bogens, fans or even course work is a skill rated no higher than a Level 2 NVQ, what hope is there? I've called them fools in public, in print and I've said it to their faces.

If we do not provide training, our trade is wide open for exploitation by rogues and cowboys and we deny many lads and lasses the chance to earn a good living building pavements that will outlast our grandchildren.

Would you be able to sort out training days/weeks for guys already in the trade to learn the traditional street masonry skills?

Im sure people would pay for it, they pay to learn everything else.

[henpecked]

I think the main problem would be 'deskilling' as you'd never have enough practice to maintain your technique. Setts are not spec'd half as much as they can be either.
They've just 'revamped' Coventry city centre, its gone from a quaint little meeting area, to 40000m2 of slab. It looks fecking awful, if they'd put some features in to break it up, it wouldn't look half as bad, but its skills/price and time .So we get slabs