Monday, September 25, 2006
No smoke without fire
Although I support the existence of a smoking shelter outside the National Assembly's Cardiff Bay office, I do share the concerns expressed by the BMA in today's newspaper that it will need to be adapted to fit in with new regulations associated with the smoking in public places legislation.
At the time I went to great pains to stress that regulations in Wales will be very similar to Ireland where smoking shelters such as this one, which has a roof, must only have three walls. Instead we have a conservatory extension and the possibility of incurring yet further expense in adapting it in a few months time.
It is astonishing that even though it took a full twelve months to build the contraption once the decision to go-ahead was taken, there was no foresight applied as to what is a suitable design in the light of future legislation, and that the advice of people who have studied the implementation of other smoking bans in-depth was apparently ignored.
At the time I went to great pains to stress that regulations in Wales will be very similar to Ireland where smoking shelters such as this one, which has a roof, must only have three walls. Instead we have a conservatory extension and the possibility of incurring yet further expense in adapting it in a few months time.
It is astonishing that even though it took a full twelve months to build the contraption once the decision to go-ahead was taken, there was no foresight applied as to what is a suitable design in the light of future legislation, and that the advice of people who have studied the implementation of other smoking bans in-depth was apparently ignored.
