Horsley Water Treatment Works Upgrade

Hi, everyone

Now that the holiday season is over It's time to update the report on progress at Horsley WTW.

Mechanical and electrical installations have continued in the Actiflo, Rapid gravity Filters, and the new Birney hill Pumping Station (BHPS). With pipework installation completed in the BHPS the roof construction commenced with structural steel support columns erected and the construction of falsework (support frame) and formwork to the roof slab soffit (underside of the slab). Fixing of reinforcement steel has now commenced to the slab.

Laying of underground ducts for electric cables has continued around the site. Cable drawpits are being constructed as this work progresses.The crawler crane which has been stationed alongside BHPS for some time has been dismantled and has been transported from site. A mobile crane will from time to time be used for any further lifting operations required in this area.B

Support steelwork and metal covers have been fitted to the Inlet distribution chamber at the head of The Works.

Work to the Static Mixer Chamber commenced with excavation completed in August. Concreting of the base slab and first lift to the walls has now been completed. Backfilling around the lower section is complete and the second lift of concrete walls will follow.

One of my colleagues at Horsley went on holiday with his family and friends on a return visit to the hotel they all stayed at last summer. They knew the full drill for the fortnight as they were now veterans. Said colleague's wife was tasked with confirming the return pick-up details, and duly returned with the intel (it's like I've seen "The Bodyguard" and know all the snip-speak) that the pick-up point was the same as last year. As the roads around their hotel are narrow and tricky for a coach to navigate the gang of seven trooped down the hill on departure day to the same departure point as the previous year ( I should point out that this was the middle of the day in Spain and they were all rigged out in their new travel gear which was designed for the English winter - it being mid-August). They'd arrived in good time for the pick-up but started to worry when the bus hadn't arrived 30 minutes after the allotted time, particularly when my colleague pointed out that a coach from their tour operator had passed the recce point and headed half a mile up the hill to the air-conditioned hotel they had recently vacated. I'm not sure why nobody endangered his/her life by standing in the middle of the road as the bus passed them again on the Airport-bound return run. It was probably because the instructions were so clear re this year's return pick-up and specifically because the normally infallible, right-first-time, do-it-once only person in the squad had provided the verification.Turns out that the bus pick-up point for this year was the bus stop on the street with exactly the same name as that of the hotel (a different bus stop to last year). Anyway, 2 taxis and 140 euros (which now equates to about 300 quid) later the mood at the airport was what was described as smouldering. He decided that silence was the most suitable form of retribution, armed with the (probably misguided) opinion that any of his similar previous misdemeanours now paled into insignificance. The wife was inconsolable with shame, horror, and embarrassment at the departure airport. In my head I have a picture of her being an outcast sidling to the empty quarter of the airport departure lounge to leave everybody else to enjoy the last few hours of the holiday experience. I'm surprised nobody's thought of producing a comedy series based on similar exploits. You couldn't make it up.

Enjoy the rest of the week.