Good Morning Everyone and a Happy New Year to you all.

I do hope Santa Claus was kind at that you all over-indulged prodigiously over the festive period.

As you're no doubt aware, our team have slipped easily back into routine after our break and are now in the process of preparing the site for our subcontractor Keltbray to commence the removal of the steel frames and sheet piles. This will begin in earnest on Monday 14th January and we expect it to take approximately 3 weeks. During this time you will notice the addition of a 60 ton crawler crane to the immediate skyline which we will use to lift weights of up to 15 tonnes. Please be vigilant as there will be an uplift in wagons attending site to remove the steel as well as the re-import of excavated material as we look to bury the entirety of the tanks during this period. We expect 93 loads of material to return to site over the next month and ask once again for your continued patience whilst we carry this operation out as swiftly and safely as possible. The end is truly nigh now and I'm happy to say that is still an absolute pleasure to come to work in such a beautiful corner of the world, among such wonderful neighbours.

Best wishes

Colin

With the Christmas Holidays coming up, it’s time to share our final post of the year!
We would just like to thank all our lovely customers for their continued support and cooperation throughout the year to allow our projects across the region to run as smoothly and quickly as possible. Our sites will be shutting down on Friday 21st December and will re-open Thursday 3rd January. For anything urgent, you can contact the 24-hour Customer Contact team at Northumbrian Water on 03457171100.
From all of us at MMB, we wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!

Good afternoon all, it’s been some time since our last update, so here goes!

We have now finished the construction of the tanks, with the final concrete pour carried out on Friday 7th December. This was an important milestone on the job and I'm very pleased to say that it has been completed on schedule, despite the concrete being delayed a few days due to the sub-zero temperatures encountered last week.

We're all over the moon to have this completed this side of Christmas and we look forward to breaking up for the holidays next Friday the 21st before returning in the New Year on the 3rd January 2019, doubtless a little more corpulent than when we leave!

Our plans for the remainder of the year are to begin backfilling our excavation before the return of our subcontractor, Keltbray in late January who will be removing the steel sheet piles they installed so expertly in July. Upon the completion and removal of these we will connect up our new detention tanks and enjoy a working asset that will significantly reduce the pollution risk in this stunning corner of Durham

Late last Month we had a meeting with the Friends of Flass Vale, to start the discussions early on the reinstatement plan. We will be working closely with them throughout the remainder of the project to understand their visions for The Vale and look forward to leaving a legacy we can all be proud of for many years to come.

Good Morning everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend

I just wanted to leave a brief note to thank you all very much for popping in to our open morning last Wednesday. Your feedback is invaluable to us as we strive toward excellent customer engagement as part of our project goal.

We're currently going through your thoughts and comments and expect to gain some important insight into how we can improve what I hope has been very good communication so far. It was a very interesting morning and we had somewhere in the region of 50 visitors which is excellent. I am however a little disappointed that all of the biscuits didn't get eaten. This meant that I had to finish them off myself which has done absolutely nothing for my diet. We must improve this next time, particularly if there is to be cakes (which I've heard whispers of) My colleague Sarah will most likely be posting pictures of the works from your visit so keep checking for updates. Thank you all again and as ever, direct any queries to Colin.Butler@jnbentley.co.uk or pop in and see me at our compound at Durham Light Infantry.

Have a lovely week

Colin

Good morning everyone.

It's hard to believe we're already midway through October and well on the way to closing out 2018; but here we are and we're making excellent progress in the vale with our installation of the Two reinforced concrete tanks.

As I'm sure you're aware, we have invited a number of local residents down to an open morning on Wednesday 17th October between 10:00 and 12:00. The idea of this is to have a cuppa, a few biscuits and a chat about the works and how they're affecting the local environment. This is also an excellent opportunity to put our project team on the spot and ask any questions that may be at the front of your mind or indeed that arise on the day. I will be there all day and expect to have a little help from Sarah, our Customer Liasion Officer as well as David Groark, the Northumbrian Water Project Manager for the works. Dave will be able to answer all the really difficult technical question that we won't so please be sure to pose him a few!

Please be sure to wear suitable, sturdy footwear. A high visibility vest will be provided upon arrival. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. In the meantime, if anything crops up, please don't hesitate to drop me a line on 07814785021 or Colin.Butler@jnbentley.co.uk

Colin

Good Afternoon,

Just a quick progress update with regards to our ongoing works at Flass Vale:

We have now completed our bulk excavation works which will see a significant decrease in site traffic, especially wagons. This has always been our preference giving the proximity of local schools and I'm pleased to say that this operation was carried off without a hitch. We're thankful to our suppliers and framework partners for their aid in delivering this part of the project and the successful removal of circa 5000 tonnes of materials has been relatively painless!

We are currently installing a stone base in the formation of our tank which will see us importing around 400 tonnes of material. After this we will be leading in concrete to form our detention tanks so please be vigilant whilst in the surrounding area.

Three of my colleagues took the chance to help the Friends of Flass Vale gang with some gardening and maintenance this week though I myself suspect that there were mainly biscuit eating and coffee quaffing activities going on, nevertheless I'm informed that I too owe some of my time to helping out with some works in our beautiful vale and I will assuredly be lending a hand in the near future! (If you're reading this Val, I definitely owe you!) A big well done and thank you to Sarah-Jayne, Savannah and Jessica for mucking in and getting their hands dirty.

Once again I have attached some recent photographs and wish you all a pleasant weekend coming up!

Thanks,

Colin

Me again,

The photographs that I didn't attach earlier... (It is a Monday)

Best Regards

Colin

Good Morning,

It feels like the recent spell of glorious weather may have broken and as usual, it couldn't be at a worse time. Just as we have began our bulk excavation in earnest, the rain has arrived. Please be extra vigilant if you happen to be around the Flassburn Road/Whitesmocks area in the next fortnight or so as you will notice a definite increase in volume of traffic. Our excavation calls for circa 275 wagons of spoil to be exported, 108 of which have gone already. Continuing our collaborative approach, we were pleased to engage our framework partners ESH who will be removing 90 or so loads in the next week or so for re-import at the end of the job; you should have no trouble spotting their big green wagons!

As always, please don't hesitate to drop me a line on Colin.Butler@jnbentley.co.uk or give me a call on 07814785021. Alternatively, my colleague Sarah-Jayne will also be happy to answer any queries. You can find her on SarahJayne.Vickers@jnbentley.co.uk

Best Regards,

Colin

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend enjoying the nice weather.

As you might have seen, we began to install the sheet piles to support the excavation for the underground storage tanks in Flass Vale last Tuesday. We’ve made good progress this week and hope to continue this over the next couple of weeks. I’ve attached two short video clips which show what we are doing. We have tried to minimise the impact of the work by using a technique which pushes the piles into the ground, rather than driving them in with a hammer or vibrating them and hopefully the first clip (with the pound coin in the foreground) lets you see what sort of vibration levels we are seeing.

I hope this is helpful and we’ll post further updates as work proceeds.

Best regards,

Dave

Afternoon All, just a quick reminder that whilst our works are ongoing could you please keep in mind that the foot paths are closed and public access should not be attemped. 

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sarah Vickers

PS enjoy to lovely weather over the weekend!