u/Walton_guy

My son is soon to be 18, at which point he will get access to his govt organised child trust fund.

We've been topping it up, so there's a decent sum in it.

My son has a number of issues around money, and in particular has a major weed habit that results in him spending money as though it burns his fingers.

Is there any way, perhaps through an application to a court, that he can be prevented from accessing the money in the child trust fund when he reaches 18, at least until he's free of his dependency?

We're looking at having our short shared road resurfaced/relayed.

We've looked at some work one of our potential contractors has done locally very recently, and noticed that there are what look like minor 'holes' perhaps around the size of the aggregate being used (10mm) in the surface. These are the dark bits in the two images below- the rest of the surface is rolled very flat. The specified thickness here is 35mm, laid on top of whatever was there after 35mm was milled off the old road surface.

https://preview.redd.it/xlckv0cgi46h1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a616ebaabfb667fef34ce2cff0d9bd2b1667e52

https://preview.redd.it/y8eelkmci46h1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=561872b29102b6af2373ca42f9cc0ffc6402e6bf

Other road surfaces (including ours in undamaged areas) has a surface without these voids(?) - two examples below. These were laid perhaps two years ago.

https://preview.redd.it/2po64yuqi46h1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f6a4e151ab8f9a0f6fc532ddf057c5edb909dff

https://preview.redd.it/rh2mu1vqi46h1.jpg?width=837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf7091bae64bbb52425ac8eb5fc95d1bd527752e

The aggregate size is perhaps a little smaller, although I've not measured.

Can anyone explain the cause of these voids, and what can be done/specified to avoid them when we have out road done? We are concerned both about the visuals and in case they are a water ingress risk.

I've asked the contractor who did the work, and their response was very waffly.

I'm in the south of the UK in case that matters....

Thanks!

More of a curiosity question on my part than anything else - after some badgering from myself and some neighbours (All our FTTC speeds are poor, and drop when it rains....), a new CBT has been installed, and it appears I (and my neighbours) can now place an order for fibre service from both my existing ISP and others - success and celebrations all 'round!

I notice though that the OpenReach postcode checker is still reporting "No plans to build", which is clearly wrong...
There must be a different database that the ISPs use to determine if customers can order - is it likely to ripple through to the OR checker page at some point?

After using the "neighbours can get fibre but I can't" option on the enquiry form, I finally got the response below from the enquiry team. There's lots of "get outs" later on the email, but I'm taking it as a positive at this point!

>>

We have now raised a job to install additional FTTP equipment in your area. This is required because the current network capacity has been reached, and the engineering team will be completing the necessary upgrade works.

Please note that there are currently no confirmed timescales for these works. These types of requests are carried out on an ad-hoc basis and must be scheduled around other planned and ongoing engineering activities.

 

At present, we are advising that the work may take up to 3 months to complete. However, some builds may be finished sooner, while others could take longer depending on resource availability and the specific requirements of the job.

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