Fair enough - that's OK then.Morning John, Yes, all cables run vertically out of the consumer unit (housing the RCDs). The box is 450mm wide, and the cables are bunched to a width of 160mm, running to the ceiling.
That's obviously your choice but, as I said at the very start, I think you are probably over-estimating the additional "bit of protection" that would be afforded by standard 'capping' / 'channeling'. If you really wanted to protect against drills, nails and pins etc., you would really need steel sheet, probably at least 2-3 mm thick, or some equivalent.The cables are clipped down neat enough. The channeling is to cover the cables before plastering and add a bit of protection should someone choose to drill in this location. I do appreciate that its still possible to drill through this channeling, but it does act as a first line of defence.
I would also say that, of all the bits of wall in a house, the bit vertically above a CU is probably the place where anyone with even half a brain would suspect that there were probably buried cables, and if cables coming out of the top of the CU and entering the wall are visible, that would also apply to anyone with quarter of a brain, or less
You may well not like it aesthetically, by scousespark's suggesting of "boxing everything in" would have the advantage that any future work which may be needed on any of the cables (or additional cables) would be far less destructive.
Kind Regards, John