Talk:Kepier power station

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Promoted to GA

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Kepier power station/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Spinningspark (talk · contribs) 18:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The article looks in good shape on an initial read through. I will restrict my comments to the lede for now. Please indicate that you are responding before I continue and further. SpinningSpark 18:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC) and 22:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Lede

• It needs to be mentioned that the location is England for the benefit of non-UK residents who may have no idea County Durham is.
• The lede seems a little short for the amount of material in the article. The longest sections in the body are Criticism and support (only one criticism mentioned in lede) and Inquiry which does not get a mention at all.
• The word famed in the phrase "famed architect" is a PEACOCK term and is best omitted.
• SpinningSpark 18:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am responding sorry. I've made the suggested changes, please continue. Fintan264 (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Background

• "...within short distance of..." is clunky. Either "within <specific distance of>" or "a short distance from".
• "The reason the site was selected was, firstly..." There is no secondly, so firstly can be removed.
• In fact, that whole sentence is long and confused. Can I suggest replacing the last two sentences of that paragraph with "The site was chosen because it needed to be in the mid-County Durham area, specifically, the station needed to be a short distance from the River Wear, downstream of Durham, and on solid foundations. Mine workings in County Durham restricted the number of possible sites which could meet the requirement for solid foundations.[2][1] The site also required good road and rail access.[1]"
• ...needed to be in mid-Durham..." presumably because that placed it close to where the coal was being mined as implied later in the article. If so, that could be mentioned specifically.
• SpinningSpark 20:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Design

• Quotations should not be in italics, see Wikipedia:MOS#Italics_and_quotations
• "a credit to the whole district". Such highly subjective quotes should be credited to the author or publication, not left anonymous.
• County Durham. This is not linked on its first occurence, please move link to where it first occurs in the body (it is ok to have it linked in the lede as well).
• "The remaining dust that would leave the chimney's would not have caused any appreciable pollution". If this is an assessment from the period, that should be made clear. From the figures in the article the station would still be producing a dozen tons of dust per week which might, or might not, be considered "appreciable" by modern enviromentalists.
• "...something which NESCo claimed they would have no problem selling onto local construction companies because of its usability in construction materials." This would be better as a separate sentence, "NESCo intended to sell this on to local construction companies as a construction material." Note on to is two words in this context. Presumably the reason for the "Nesco claimed...no problem" construction is that if they couldn't sell it the build up would cause a problem. Something like "...and believed there was a ready market for this." might suffice better.
• "...would have also built up..." Better word order "...would also have built up..."
• SpinningSpark 21:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Carried all these suggestions out, no problem so far, keep 'em coming. Fintan264 (talk) 14:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

General

• There is still a problem with quotations in italics. You need to go through the whole article checking for this.

Criticism and support

• "...the power station would enhance the city's attractions..." The long quote from NESCo is introduced as if it were going to back up this claim, but it does not really say that. Some rewording is needed here.
• In all fairness this is not an issue as far as GA is concerned, but you may want to think about it anyway: much of the long quote from NESCo is repeating material given earlier in the article.
• "...wouldn't..." Contractions are deprecated. See MOS:N'T
• "At a meeting of Durham County Council on 26 July 1944, J.W. Foster, chairman of the Finance Committee of the council, spoke in favour of the proposals, as they would fulfill the Governments White Paper on Employment Policy, for the rehabilitation of depressed areas, as it would provide employment in the station's construction and maintenance, especially after the large scale unemployment of the Great Depression less than thirty years earlier." I'm struggling a bit to parse this sentence. It could probably do with breaking up.

• Using the "as" construction twice is confusing for a start.
• Is "rehabilitation of depressed areas" one of the policy aims of the White Paper? Or is it a subtitle of the paper? It is not clear.
• It does not make sense to say that "...it would provide employment...especially after...the Great Depression". Employment would be provided whether or not the Great Depression had occured. I suppose what is meant is that the Council were concerned that high unemployment would return after the war. Unemployment was not a problem during the war (just the opposite) or in the 1950s but the Council fearing it might be is understandable. What does the source say?
• The Great Depression occured in the 1930s; a lot closer to 1944 than thirty years. If this is an error by the chairman and the article is merely quoting him this should be made clear, otherwise it should be corrected.

• "...against the thoughts of the experts who designed the station, that the station would "destroy the Medieval charm of the city"". This sounds like the thoughts of the experts were to destroy the charm of the city, which I am sure is not what is intended.
• "...to avoid any violation of the view to be avoided." Not clear what this means.
• "the county's economy should be put in front of the concerns of "the people of this county to a life of economic security above the claims..."" This does not quite flow grammatically.
• SpinningSpark 16:42, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Inquiry

• It should be stated what office Cyril Hurcomb held when he made his suggestion.
• "...was turned down..." by whom?
• "...as if the scheme were to be declined consent and new arrangements were to be made, they would have no new plant in operation until after 1948.[2]" Suggest "...because if the scheme were declined, and consent and new arrangements had to be made, they would have no new plant in operation until after 1948.[2]"
• couldn't
• The Times (and any other publications mentioned in the article) should be italicised.
• "The Commissioners". It is not made entirely clear who is being referred to. Is it the members of the enquiry? The Electricity Commissioners are also mentioned so there needs to be some clear disambiguation. There is also one case of "the commissioners" (lower case) who presumably are not someone different again. Probably, they should all be lc (see MOS:CAP) but either way, at least consistency is needed.
• "Geoffrey Whiskard, pushed for the commissioners to withhold consent, as the resulting compensation for the company would have been more than Durham Rural District Council could afford." There seems to be an implication here that if consent was granted the District Council would have to pay compensation. I am not sure I follow the logic of this. Is the situation that the District Council would be liable for unnecessarily instigating an inquiry? But not liable if the inquiry found against the project? They were paid compensation anyway.
• "The Commissioners had only been appointed to simply consider granting consent, and that they could not refuse consent if it was shown that a proposed new or extended station could supply electricity in sufficient quantity and regularity as to meet the needs of consumers at no greater cost than any alternative source of supply.[3]" Would this be a correct reworking of that sentence, "The terms of reference the inquiry were to consider whether a proposed new or extended station could supply sufficient electricity to meet the needs of consumers at no greater cost than any alternative source of supply. The Commissioners could not refuse consent if these conditions were met."
• "...agreed to drop the scheme on two terms..." but only one term is stated.
• SpinningSpark 17:55, 4 November 2011 (UTC) and 00:21, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Outcome

• "...whom inherited it on vesting day in 1948". Vesting day is unnecessary legal jargon (quite a lot in this article). Whom is also wrong here, but won't just "...in 1948." do?
• "They eventually deposed of it." What does this mean? Sold?

References

• Refs 1, 2 and 10 should have the name of the article in the Title field of the template, not the name of the Journal.
• The references should be in a consistent style. Normally book and journal titles are in title case (but not article and chapter titles which are in sentence case) but you have a mixture. There is no GA requirement for any particular style but consistency would be good here. Capitalising the titles of ref 3, 8 and 10 should fix it.
• SpinningSpark 01:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorted nearly all of these now, exceptions being:

• It does not make sense to say that "...it would provide employment...especially after...the Great Depression". Employment would be provided whether or not the Great Depression had occured. I suppose what is meant is that the Council were concerned that high unemployment would return after the war. Unemployment was not a problem during the war (just the opposite) or in the 1950s but the Council fearing it might be is understandable. What does the source say? - I will have to check the source when I can.
• "Geoffrey Whiskard, pushed for the commissioners to withhold consent, as the resulting compensation for the company would have been more than Durham Rural District Council could afford." There seems to be an implication here that if consent was granted the District Council would have to pay compensation. I am not sure I follow the logic of this. Is the situation that the District Council would be liable for unnecessarily instigating an inquiry? But not liable if the inquiry found against the project? They were paid compensation anyway. - I am unsure what to do with this.
• "...agreed to drop the scheme on two terms..." but only one term is stated. - I am sure the source says there were two terms but only one is given in the source. Again, not sure what to do.
• I also need to get the titles of the articles from said sources.

Fintan264 (talk) 23:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• It is pointless saying there were two conditions if we don't know what they were. Just say "...on condition that..." or something similar instead. There may have been more conditions, but if we don't know them, just leave it open. For all we know the source has summarised two conditions into one sentence. SpinningSpark 07:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for the amount of time it's taking to tie up those last couple of points, I should have internet access at home again by the weekend. I'll finish up then. Fintan264 (talk) 11:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

No hurry, I won't close the GA while it is clear you are still working on the problems. Just let me know when you are ready for me to review the changes. SpinningSpark 16:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Of the two points left, this is what the respective sources say:

• "One cannot, however, ignore the claims of this generation that we do all in our power to prevent a repetition of the former wholesale unemployment and distress, and thereby to restore the economic and social life of the community. This must be the first object in view, for the lives of a million people depend upon the restoration of the industrial balance and prosperity of this country. The power station is obviously a step to this end, for electricity is the life blood of existing industry and especially of the modern light industries which must be established to leaven the basic heavy and export industries of the county." - I think I've over exaggerated a bit here, they were more concerned with preventing what had happened before, but it was still in recent memory. I'm not sure how to rephrase the article.

  That seems quite clear, they supported the power station because they were concerned about the possibility of a return to pre-war unemployment. SpinningSpark 20:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• "To the alarm of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, the Law Officers of the Crown overturned an earlier ruling of the Treasury Solicitor, and concluded that it was. The implications were considerable. If the Electricity Commissioners refused to sanction the station, whether of their own volition or at the request of the ministers, the question of compensation to the company would not arise. If, however, they persisted in their view that consent should be given, but planning consent was refused, the company would be entitled to claim the additional costs, if any, of erecting a station on another site and of losses of revenue in the interim period. So as to avoid such a possibility, the permanent secretary of the ministry of town and country planning, geoffrey whiskard, pressed the commissioners to withold consent. the level of compensation would greatly exceed anything the durham rural district council could afford. Monies would have to be guaranteed by the Treasury before any final decision could be announced. In rejecting such a line of action, Hurcomb insisted that, whilst there should be the closest consultation, this did not mean that the Commissioners should acquiesce in every decision taken by another Minister, and still less project his decisions as if their own. To do so would be to turn the Commissioners into a 'catspaw' by administrative arrangement, and to deny, in this case, compensation to those who might be legitimately entitled to it." - What do you make of it? Fintan264 (talk) 13:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  This is still not entirely clear, the preceding passage(s) is needed to understand this fully - what decision was it that the Law Officers overturned? What is clear is that the compensation at issue is not the cost of the inquiry (as we now have in the article) but compensation as a result of Durham City Council witholding planning consent for a project that the Commissioners (might possibly) judge to be legitimate. But also not clear is why is there a possibility that the Council might want to withold permission at all? The article earlier said they were in favour. Did they change their minds? Were they under pressure from a government listening to the protesters? What is this decision "taken by another Minister" that Hurcomb thinks would turn them "into a catspaw"? Which minister is this? Presumably not the Minister of Town and Country Planning who appointed Hurcomb. SpinningSpark 20:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Ah, I see you have now put in that Hurcomb worked for a different Ministry which could explain why he is not keen to follow orders from the Ministry of Town and Country Planning but we still need to resolve what the sources are saying. SpinningSpark 21:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The preceding passage is: "By April 1945, the delay in announcing a decision showed every sign of dragging on interminably. The Chairman of NESCO gave voice to his anger in The Times. The permanent secretary of the ministry of fuel and power, sir frank tribe, wrote to Hurcomb, asking wether there was something the minister could do to bring matters to a head. tribe's own suggestion was to include the draft of a letter which the minister might send to w s morrison indicating that the commissioners were fully justified in giving consent to the site. Whilst they naturally had regard to questions of amenity in the narrow sense, the commissioners were required to judge such matters primarily in terms of the development of electricity. Their decision should be announced straightaway. if, however, morrison thought the site was unsuitable on the grounds that 'the city of durham is one of our national treasures and it would be wrong to industrialise the neighbourhood', the draft continued, 'I should personally support you in that view and i do not think that the commissioners would feel any resentment at my doing so since clearly it is my duty to take a rather wider view of these problems.' Hurcomb's response was brief and to the point. The Commissioners did not relish the prospect of taking a decision from which their Minister of Fuel and Power would publically dissociate himself. The delay stemmed largely from a legal difficulty. Right from the start, the solicitors for NESCO challenged the right of the Minister of Town and Country Planning to convene an Inquiry. For the Government, the main issue was whether the Inquiry had become subject to the provisions of the new Town and Country Planning Act of 1944." Fintan264 (talk) 23:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I have had a go at making sense of this. Please check whether you agree. SpinningSpark 11:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's definitely a lot more clear. Thank you. Fintan264 (talk) 14:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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