tammac,stove,register plate,soot wrote:
I have a 60 year old chimney in my house that is square brick built.
It gets swept twice a year by the local council and has not shown to
have any problems to date, except for the odd small piece of what
looks like pointing coming down very occasionally. There is a
Charmwood multi fuel stove fitted and I only ever burn coal.
The problem is, the council have decided for the first time in 60
years, that they want to scarify the chimney, and I am worried that
this may cause damage and lead them to condem the chimney, which is
operating perfectly at the moment.
Could you please advise me on this.

Your city council has run out of things with which to meddle. I assume all
the parking problems, loud noises, houses of disrepute, pocket-parks,
traffic signals, and school cross-walks have been honed to perfection.

It's going to cost somebody something to dig around in everybody's chimney.
I'd total up the charges, then ask the town council if they really intend to
take $2,000,000 out of the local economy to detect or correct a non-problem.