06 · Anglesey
Stock, distances and seasons on Ynys Môn
AAn office on the smaller of the two islands
Holyhead is not on Anglesey. It stands on Holy Island, which is separated from Anglesey by the Cymyran Strait and joined to it twice: by the Stanley Embankment at the north, carrying the A55 and the railway, and by Four Mile Bridge a few miles to the south.
Anglesey in turn is joined to the mainland by the Britannia Bridge and the Menai Suspension Bridge. A journey from this office to a dwelling at Beaumaris crosses one strait and runs the length of the island; a journey to Bangor crosses two.
BWhat the stock is actually made of
Terraces close to the port, many of them nineteenth-century, solid wall rather than cavity, with slate roofs and shared gutters between neighbours. Above the shops in the town centre, flats usually reached by a single stair, often with the only escape route running through a commercial floor.
What the file watchesRising and penetrating damp, and the shared rainwater goods, where a defect next door becomes a fitness question in this dwelling. On the stairs, alarm coverage and the escape route, with the position of each alarm written down rather than counted.
Bungalows and seaside houses along the coast at Trearddur, Rhosneigr and Benllech, exposed to wind-driven salt from the Irish Sea. Inland towards Llangefni and Gaerwen, farm cottages off the gas grid, heated by oil or liquefied petroleum gas, sometimes with a solid fuel stove still in use.
What the file watchesWindow seals, external metalwork and the condition of render: salt does in three winters what inland weather does in ten. Inland, carbon monoxide alarms in every room with a burning appliance, tank and bund condition, and the boiler service invoice, which is the only annual record an oil system produces.
CThe year, and when each thing has to be booked
The shape of a letting year on the island. Nothing on this chart is a promise about a date; it is the order the work falls in.
Summer is when the island's population changes shape. Holiday lets take a large part of the coastal stock between June and September, which tightens what is available on a twelve-month contract and pushes long-term turnover into the spring and the late autumn.
Winter is when the fabric is tested. Gales off the Irish Sea lift slates, fill gutters with debris from the fields, and drive rain at walls that face west and have nothing in front of them.
DTwo languages on one file
Anglesey is one of the strongest Welsh-speaking areas in the country, and a contract-holder here may reasonably expect to deal with a letting in Welsh.
The Welsh Government publishes the model written statement of an occupation contract in Welsh as well as English, so a bilingual file is a matter of using the published text rather than of commissioning a translation.
A dwelling here is not harder to let than one anywhere else; it is harder to let without a calendar. The repair record · The statutory items · Back to what is held here