70 replies to this topic

[digger]

thank you digger, spectrum and exac808. its always nice to hear from a professional point of view but i do still think its a possibility and no where in the region of 50 grand .

when i first got into firework display i was told it could cost me 30 grand for land for storage and a good explosive magazine, 10 grand a year for insurance. you name it there was a price for it but here i am now cost me 2 grand a year to keep my company open and legal and that's it.

i think exac has a good point that if all the prep work is done professionally and by the book the HSE cost could be kept down.

would be nice if the ukps could re look into this and see if there is enough interest to try.

farmland would be a good idea, i rent a field for our storage which is perfect for me as they own over 1/2 a mile squared of land. some farmers are only to happy to help if it means extra income. we have a 10 year contract, i was looking to have a small manufacturing site on it but decided not to as 1/2 a mile was still to close for neighbours to complain about noise.

I know what you mean about costs, yes with plently of effort they can be brought down. In my case my time is worth more to me that than chasing round for days saving a few hundred quid here and there.

However there are very few costs for a display company. You mention 2 grand a year to keep your company open, however I am willing to place a bet it cost more than that to start it up when you add up all of the bits and bobs you have. A basic setup would be a 20ft'er (gone up a bit recently) £1400, Wood lining said 20ft'er ?, a decent firing system £2000 (very basic unit), Insurance £2500 (decent turnover allowance), rent of farmland £500 p.a. Racks mortars boards etc £3000 (more for decent kit), storage licence £200, a van etc.

So about £10K - 15K would be usefull to get a display company going, assuming that you have enough cash to live on while you set it up and get it earning money.

In comparison for a manufacturing company you will need industrial use land. It can't be done on farmland without change of use. If you do manage to get change of use then the land would have a far higher intrinsic value and hence the rent would be suitably higher (our rent is 1K per month).

To get the licence the basic cost is about £700 plus around £170 per hour of the inspectors time, this includes traveling so for a 1 hour visit in the south you may have to pay for 8 hours. Don't forget all time spent in the office on the application will also be billed.

Yes with a well prepared application the cost would be kept to a minimum (EXAT's offer would be very usefull for a society site). However in a commercial situation there are people out there that will prep applications for a fee, but don't expect their hard earned knowledge to come cheaply.

You would be surprised how quickly you can eat up cash, especially if you actually want to make anything. For example if you wanted to say press a rocket and then take it off site, how would you go about that safely in a business environment and how much do you think it would cost? (answer's on a postcard)

Edited by digger, 14 November 2011 - 07:15 PM.

[Mortartube]

to be fair kimbolton have a small amount of land with the majority of it being storage. the land around it is just farm land so ideally it would be great to own the land around it but most sites i know they dont own the land around it.

but then if farmer next to your site wanted to sell the land and build houses on it surly they would need planning permission which they would have to consider your business.

Also Kimbolton have other large ex military magazines a few miles away for storage so the whole operation is not on one site.

[phildunford]

I would love to see this happen.

However, one of the major issues has not had much air time.

Pick a location anywhere in the UK, as convenient as you like. Find me 10 (or even 5) UKPS members who would turn up to this location for a days 'work' at least once a month for the next five years. See where I'm coming from?

There is no real obstacle to us having a factory, hard working people with a common purpose can achieve anything, but talk is easy & action much harder! - See also 'State of the nation' thread...

[digger]

I would love to see this happen.

However, one of the major issues has not had much air time.

Pick a location anywhere in the UK, as convenient as you like. Find me 10 (or even 5) UKPS members who would turn up to this location for a days 'work' at least once a month for the next five years. See where I'm coming from?

There is no real obstacle to us having a factory, hard working people with a common purpose can achieve anything, but talk is easy & action much harder! - See also 'State of the nation' thread...

Yep it is very difficult. The level of commitment required as you say Phil is very high. I am sure an R&D facility could be put together without a massive cost (no off site items). However it would still effectively have to be run in a business like way. This would mean a massive amount of paperwork for the management systems etc.

It would be great if this could happen. As you say though it would require a number of people prepared to put in a sustained effort over a period of time.

I am sure that there are some people here who would be prepared to help draft simple licences and paperwork systems, but when it comes to stumping up money to make it happen and stay happening I am sure this would be far more difficult (unless someone here gets a lottery win).

I think that the societies main effort in this area should be put into the clarification of the Law for experimentalists (Wayne jump in here), as this is the avenue that is most likely to provide fruit in the near future.

yeah good point digger, i suppose i never even saw them costs as i was slowing building up my kit up years before i even started my company all cash in hand stuff. iv probably invested 10 grand of our firing system, £1000 for metal racks ect (though it would have been 10x that if my dad had not made the racks for me. container about a 1k. and there all the little bits like stakes, safety gear , training.......oh crap better not tell the the wife iv spent over 12grand to start the company lol

from the sounds of things your not trying to do anything by 1/2 so i really hope everything goes good for you m8. ill be the first to buy a legal British hand made 16" shell off you

Yep it soon adds up doesn't it when you start think of all the things that you have spent money on! (I am sure there is more you don't want to admit to the misses, money wise that is).

Yep the 16" shell, I am afraid you may have to wait a little longer for that one. We will be concentrating on other work before shells. However it is not likely that we will be producing 16"ers as there are too many issues with safety, not only from the manufacturing side of things but also from the use side which the HSE are not overly happy with.

[whoof]

[quote name='digger' timestamp='1321297966' post='75361']
In comparison for a manufacturing company you will need industrial use land. It can't be done on farmland without change of use. If you do manage to get change of use then the land would have a far higher intrinsic value and hence the rent would be suitably higher (our rent is 1K per month).

/quote]

And therin lies a stonking big problem. The perfect excuse to refuse PP.
I was wondering that if it could be classified as a club , Amenity land could be used ?
Also environmental issues to be considered, Chemical contamination of groundwater.

[exat808]

this is why there are over 100x 16" shells hidden away around the uk when here is a uk manufacturer that want to make them and is willing to do everything by the book but HSE wont allow it.

exat808 what chance as a society have we got to to make a manufacturing site for its members use by within the law where here we have a uk maufacture thats doing it by the book wanting to to build 16" shells in the uk instead of people using old dangerous Chinese rubbish that just because the hse dont like it. on what grounds can hse stop a legit business selling a legit product thats still used in the uk by professionals.

I think that Digger is right to be cautious about manufacturing 16" shells. It is not simply a matter of upscaling the safety processes for say a 4 or 8 inch item. Preparing a safety case and designing the processes for such a project would be time consuming and costly before it even reached the desks of the HSE. But, as Digger indicated in his its not a case of never say never but in his case it appears to be low on the priority list.
There are also the safety aspects that surround the use of such shells but safe use arising from operator competence and compliance with legislation should not be a hurdle to firing these items.

You asked what chance has UKPS to make a manufacturing site as a society. I think that I may have answered that in an earlier post. In my opinion the application should be made by an identifiable corporate body ( limited company) this provides the proper mechanism to enable all other aspects of H&S, Employment, Environmental, and Taxation legislation to be enforced.
UKPS in its presently constituted form may not have the correct legal standing to enable it to be a duty holder under the raft of legislation that will have to be followed in an industrial environment.

[Richard H]

For clarification, the UKPS is a limited company, but it is limited by guarantee and it does not have a share capital (There are no shareholders and none of the board can draw £20 out and go down the pub with it!). Assuming the UKPS went ahead with an R&D facility, I imagine the board would incorporate a separate limited holding, again by guarantee, to legally isolate the venture.

[spectrum]

The fact that there are allegedly 100 or so 16 inch shells in circulation of course doesn't justify their existence nor does it promote the argument that we should then be allowed to make them.

The HSE take a simple and straightforward view with regards to our manufacturing activities, either its safe and manageable or its not. We have to prove this to them, understandably and we are of course completely comfortable with that. 16 inch shells open a whole new can of worms, for us and our neighbours - enthusiasm for their production ( I am particularly uncomfortable) would not be shared by the authorities I'm afraid and would be seen as questionable and worrying.

There are other projects which are VERY exciting but they won't happen overnight. And I'm not allowed to talk about them. I'm afraid the paperwork side of things overwhelmes the dirty hands bit but after years of the practical stuff I am now comfortable with that.