[Former Member 406]

With SET still decamped to the temporary set, this is by far the slowest build for one of the new sets so far, isn't it? With no sign of any other regions decamping, the whole thing feels like it's come to a standstill...

The current situation seems utterly unfathomable.

We know that the Tunbridge Wells studio needed some structural work done after the old set was removed, including something to do with relaying the floor (or something like that), so was always gonna have a longer period of being empty before the new LED set even started to get built.

And then, a flood during those structural works further delayed things. I can't recall how many weeks ago there was a Tweet indicating that the LED set build in TW had finally commenced, but even that feels like it was about 15,000 weeks ago.

Things like the 9/10(ish)-week overlap of Nottingham and Birmingham's respective de-camps confirmed (A) the existence of 2x the prescribed temporary sets being sent around the English Regions and (B) that there must be 2x LED set installation teams touring the English Regions.

If Tunbridge Wells have (presumably) currently got the LED set installation team that previously did Hull, then logically one other English Regions should also by now have the LED set installation team that were previously in Leeds.

The lack of any English Region other than Tunbridge Wells also being de-camped for these umpteen weeks is bemusing.

At least one short-lived de-camp of South Today in recent weeks/months has revealed that the other duplicate of the touring prescribed temporary set is currently in Southampton Studio B (one of very few English Regions that actually has a 2nd proper studio, rather than needing to de-camp to e.g. a meeting room etc). But ST then returned to their long-standing old set in Studio A.

Quite why either ST hasn't commenced its proper de-camp yet, or the temp set currently sitting idle in So'ton B hasn't been redeployed to Bristol/Newcastle/Norwich/Plymouth/Salford if there are reasons why ST can't/won't properly de-camp for a while, is a mystery.

The whole roll-out does indeed seem to have rather hit the buffers.

Unless any/all of the remaining regions can manage super-quick LED set installs when they eventually get their turn, then the prospects of the roll-out being completed in Q1-Q2 2024 now seem remote.