Horsley Water Treatment Works Upgrade

Hi everyone,

I've been having some trouble today trying to update the blog so you may have seen a post that was a copy of last week's account. Hopefully I've short-circuited the problem until I can speak with somebody who's more system savvy than me and will be able to iron out the problems I'm encountering next week.

Anyway, it has again been a productive week on site with work continuing to all active areas of the scheme. Wall construction continued to the Rapid Gravity Filters section of the site with fixing of reinforcement and formwork erection. At the north end of the site the MCC base slab was concreted, and formwork erection and steelfixing followed closely behind. Pipelaying continued to the inlet pipes upstream of the Actiflo Building. See progress photos attached.

Mike Foster, the NWG Project Manger, and I attended an enjoyable evening yesterday at The Hearth in Horsley village. We were treated to a very informative talk about locally-born landscape supremo Lancelot "Capabilty" Brown. The talk centred around his birthplace of Kirkharle and, specifically, the upgrade works carried out by Kirkharle Hall's current owner. The work has involved landscaping in a Brown style to provide some new lakes, footpaths and wildflower meadow areas surounding the lakes. It looks like a very nice place to visit when the weather's behaving. The visit also gave us the opportunity to talk to some of the local residents, and to update them on the progress on site to date. I'd like to pass on our thanks to the trustees of The Hearth for making us welcome and to all those with whom we chatted. The general consensus was that everyone is happy with the way that work is progressing.

I started wondering if my internet problems of earlier today had anything to do with the cyber-attack which has so badly affected the NHS. There was a time when cyber attacks were events that only caused problems for Doctor Who (William Hartnell). At that time I basked in the comfort that rickets was no longer a real threat any more, and Trolls were merely antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted creatures who attacked and ate goats. After witnessing a Friday morning's brunch in the site office I've realised that I'm working alongside some present-day Trolls.

Enjoy your weekend.

Geoff