The brand new banners along Market Street that were only put up a week or so ago have been blown away by last nights wind. All 16 banners have been torn off the fixings on the street lamps and I gather they were blowing up and down Market Street early this morning.
It was mentioned it to me at 7′ish this morning on twitter (feel free to follow @hoylake) and I managed to walk along Market Street at around 8.15 – the banner pictured above was the only one left that I could see.
Obviously (with the benefit of hindsight) the fixings weren’t sufficiently strong enough to withstand very strong winds. Presumably they’ll be put back at some point?
I haven’t seen too much storm damage around. A few fences have gone here and there (thankfully, not ours this time!). This big wooden sign outside the nursing home on the corner of Hoyle Road obviously snapped:
Coming Soon! a new site for local restaurant and food deals. No teeth whitening, liposuction or feet eating fish guaranteed!
Sign-up for free, now 
I stumbled across two on Cable Road south, the bit near the railway. They managed to wrap themselves around peoples wheels! Hopefully they can be recovered though!
Thanks for letting me know about them by the way!
Needless to say, we at HVL are utterly devastated by what has happened. It has been an (unexpectedly) monumental effort to make this project come to fruition… many, many days sourcing the right images, getting permissions, signing contracts, designing the banners, adjusting the images, liaising with sponsors, lawyers, insurance companies and so on… confirming technical specifications, reams and reams of correspondence and so, so many meetings. Residents, local businesses and council have been hugely supportive.
It is the springs that gave way, and HVL have contacted the supplier and hope to resolve the situation very soon at no cost to HVL or the sponsors. Wirral Council have been very supportive so far and we rely on their continued support.
We have spent much of the last year trying to ensure that this important project went well, in particular that the right fixings were specified. Most of the delay in getting these banners up was precisely about this issue. Dimensions, stress loadings and so on were all investigated and discussed at great length.
The day the banners went up we expressed concern at the fixings, and were assured that it would be OK.
Alas, this was not the case.
The banners will go up again. We are not yet sure when… we need to ensure this time the fixings will work, and that may take time. We will do it as soon as possible, but we need to be very sure indeed that, this time, they will hold.
We genuinely tried our best, please bear with us, please support us, and please, if you can, offer your time and expertise on other projects. Come to our meetings. Check out our website. Join us on facebook. Hoylake needs you!
What a tragedy. Commiserations to all those who tried so hard.
P.S. The Sailing Club or ship’s chandlers in Carr Lane are probably best placed to advise on the new fittings!
Thanks Peter, good suggestion, we have been looking at Karabiners… i.e. climbing equipment, but sailing gear could be equally, if not more, appropriate.
The banners have a 1.5 metre square surface area.
This is the maximum wind stress load of the posts for banners with a rigid fixing (ie not sprung/variable). Its not a lot, but in high wind… Hence the use of springs, to give some degree of ‘play’ which were allegedly of a certain specification.
So we may now be looking at rigid fixings.
We tried. For a year. The springs failed. The rest is history.
Anyone with professional knowledge willing to help us get this sorted out?