Thanks for the replies chaps,
The use of triacs is something I've considered, but to be honest relays would suffice for the switching on and off of outlets - I would be looking at using the type which fail on rather than off.
Triacs did however conjure up thoughts of something even nicer which could be done on the mains input side and in particular switching of mains sources. Everything connected to these bars would be switched mode AC power supply, so could cope with brief interruptions of power (by brief I mean milliseconds) so it isn't beyond the realms of possiblity one could do some clever switching, have two mains inputs and very quickly switch between one and the other, should a power source become unavailable.
regards
Lee