'Nonsense to hush Big Ben for four years'

The clockmaker who maintained Big Ben's clock for decades has branded as "nonsense" the decision to silence the Great Bell for four years.

Melvyn Lee, who knows the clock mechanism better than anyone, said there were no great barriers to striking the bell during renovation work.

His insistence that Big Ben is being needlessly put out of action will heap added pressure on parliamentary authorities to reverse the plan to silence it from Monday.

The project manager who oversaw the Elizabeth Tower's last major renovation, in the mid 1980s, said it was "absurd" to silence the bell. Rodney Perry, in charge of maintenance at the time, said the bell chimed for almost the entire time during the two years of renovation.

The two men wrote to The Daily Telegraph protesting against the decision to silence Big Ben until 2021 at the earliest.

Lee, who owns Thwaites & Reed, one of the UK's oldest clockmakers, which maintained the Great Clock at Westminster for more than 30 years from the mid 1970s, said: "There is something amiss. The need to close it down for four years is nonsense."

He said there were two methods to strike the bell - one using a lever which would allow the bell to be rung on the hour whenever authorities chose. The other would use a "mechanical cam" - a device that enables it to be tolled by hand.

Lee said he did not recognise claims by authorities at the House of Commons that it would take half a day to prime the bell.

He said builders would need to wear ear defenders only if working next to the bell. He said the bell was not heard that loudly when working elsewhere in the Elizabeth Tower, including near the clock mechanism. It would take two weeks to dismantle the clock mechanism, clean it and put it back in place.

Perry, who was project manager during the two-year renovation of the tower in 1983, said: "We didn't seem to have any issues with the ringing of the bells. Workers wore ear defenders when working close to the bells. It was only when we stopped the clock to do some repairs on the mechanism itself that the chimes were silenced. But that was for only very short periods. It is absurd to silence the bell for four years."

MPs who approved the £29-million renovation of the tower were not told it would entail silencing Big Ben until the work's completion in 2021.

Theresa May waded into the row, demanding a rethink of the decision. She said: "It can't be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years.''

The decision is now being reviewed by the House of Commons Commission, made up of MPs and officials, which rubber-stamped the work.

- The Daily Telegraph