Exciting times as Phase 1 of Darnford Moors Ecology Park is getting close to completion. Pretty soon the stop planks (currently on the lift bridge) will be put in place and then... water! All of this is thanks to our funding from ERDF and the HS2 CEF.
It has been an interesting couple of months but the winter weather has hampered us a bit. There’s been the cold and snow during February and March followed by an extremely wet and windy March. But nonetheless we have made great progress at Darnford.
The weather seems to have had much more of an impact on us this winter. First the early snow in December, which covered and subsequently froze the ground and then the heavy rain towards the end of the month created much mud and further hampered progress over the more recent weeks.
I am pleased to report significant progress over the last few days on the Darnford Moors Ecology Project with our Trust volunteers and contractors. The fine weather has allowed ground to dry out sufficiently for the Trust to carry out essential groundworks.
Darnford Moors Ecology Park. The power of nature never ceases to amaze me. The relatively short time that it takes for nature to ‘overtake’ and ‘recapture’ a built environment that has been created.
As I write this blog charting our work parties progress over the last six weeks or so the high temperatures that we have been faced with seem all but a distant memory.
The main renovation worksites for the last couple of months have been at Tamworth Road.
Firstly, concreting the basin floor at Pound 25 but also making some progress with the new canal narrows - as it emerges from the redundant lock 24, on the approach to Cricket Lane.
Falkland Road - Zone C. Just a bit of finishing off of the perimeter bund and fitting access gates at Zone C last month - while we now wait for Planning Permission.
Falkland Road Zone C
For the last 6 weeks or so a team have been at Falkland Road in an area we call Zone C (the section between Claypit Lane and Birmingham Road).
We have recently been donated a lathe from Bedford Model Engineering Society. This gives our apprentices another skill they can learn, which we can put to good use to make new pins and bushes for our aging machines.
It has been an extremely wet December and consequently there hasn’t been much progress at the Tamworth Road Narrows, only the most hardiest of volunteers has dared venture onto this site.