Good morning,

What an amazing day, the sun is shining and we are finishing on site.

As you have been walking around the area, you may have seen some posters advertising a community event to celebrate the end of our works.  It was planned for the 29 July, however this has now been postposed until later this year.

We will be in touch with a new date closer to the time.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Christine

Hi Everyone

Just a few finishing touches to go, however the footpaths will be open to walk around from the park end of the Lake from today! We will also be starting to remove the fencing today, so there really isn't long til we completely pull off site.

I've attached a couple of photos from this morning, if you look closely enough, you can really see the grass beginning to take where it was seeded.

Enjoy the rest of the week

Tony

Hi Everyone

We are now within touching distance of crossing the line! The last bit of work is finishing off round the area of the park and we're making visible progress this week. We've turfed and seeded the areas intended for grass and only need a little touching up before we're done completely. The fencing is coming down and our remaining cabin will be removed next week!

I've attached a few pictures that Lawrence has sent over of the turfing around the park, its definitely taking shape!

Regards

Tony

Hi Everyone

I have been up to site this morning and must say that the reinstatements are beginning to look impressive! Obviously its still necessary to look at it and imagine when the grass has taken hold, but the basins in particular are looking good! They've now been seeded and the benches and picnic tables are in place. The footpaths are all tarmac'd and now need to be swept clean before we open them up. The little bridge over the wear needs a hand rail put up and this is planned to go up very soon. The fencing will start to come down early next week - but we ask that you allow nature to take its course and allow the seed to germinate. Its relatively slow growing grass, so won't sprout up quickly, and may take quite a while to become fully established.

Along at the park, there is still some work to do on the reinstatements and next week we expect to be seeding and turfing where applicable. We still expect to have the park open by 15 July 2019.

I've attached a few photos that I took this morning

Take Care

Tony

Hi Everyone

I was on site this yesterday and had a walk around with Lawrence. Work is rapidly approaching the end now! You may notice that the cabins have been removed and a smaller single cabin is now located in the car park off Station Road.

Work on the basins is complete, the footpaths are complete and the access road is also done. We are now in the process of reinstating the area - the benches and picnic tables are being fitted and we have our contractors coming in very soon to seed the area. Once seeded we will begin the task of removing the herras fencing, which is around the working area. Seeding has been delayed a little so far due to the weather - the heavy rain has waterlogged the area so it has not been possible to seed yet. This will hopefully be done very soon, but obviously this is weather dependant.

I also noticed that the eco-garden islands have really take hold and are now thriving!

I've attached a few photos that I took this morning showing our progress.

Regards

Tony

Good afternoon,

Following the heavy rain at the weekend the site team have worked hard to complete the overflow from the lake this week. However due to the continued rainfall we have not been able to fully complete this operation due to the heavy rainfall and the aparatus being under water.  Although we have connected the culverts to the lakes which are accepting surface water.

The rainfall this week has slowed our team on site, and the ongoing bad weather is restricting our reinstatement works, we will you updated next week.  We have included some photographs of the newly constructed basins filling with the excess water.

Hopefully the rain will now ease off and we can get back to the summer weather!

Regards

Tony

Good Afternoon Everyone,

As Tony is away on his holidays I thought this was a perfect opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Becky Gartland and I work alongside Christine Taylor and Tony Birkett within the Customer Team for Esh-Stantec.

I am a Customer Service Administrator based at Pity Me and I'm always here to answer any of your queries whether that be over the portal or you would like to give me a call to chat about our works, I'll be more than happy to help 🙂

Lawrence has kindly provided me with an update on the works this week.

You will see from the images attached that our compound has now been removed and we are currently laying top soil on the area.

Due to the recent bad weather we have been unable to seed the East and West basins and hope to have this completed next week.

Have a lovely weekend!

Becky 

Hi Everyone

We are moving along nicely towards finishing at Killingworth!

The basins to the South of the Lake are being seeded today and tuesday and we expect to remove our fencing and open this area by 14th June 2019.

We are also going well in the area of the play park and we are expect to start reinstatementing this area week commencing Monday 10th June 2019 with a view to opening the park by 1st July 2019.

As you may notice, we are currently working on dismantling the compound area and setting up a small satelite compound at the site entrance.

Hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Regards

Tony

Hi Everyone

I've been taking advantage of the lovely weather and been out and about round by the Lake this morning checking on the progress of our Gabion Baskets and Floating Eco-systems.

I've attached a few pictures. As you can see, the gabion baskets in the smaller lake to the East of Southgate are flourishing - even the nesting coot beside them approves! The floating eco-systems are a bit more difficult to check on progress (as they are in the middle of the lake!), but you can just about see in my pictures that there are green shoots clearly showing - no doubt over the next few months this should take hold too!

Regards

Tony

Hi Everyone

What a glorious week of weather we've had this week - hopefully this is the start of a long and warm summer! But I've probably jinxed it now by saying that!

We've continued making progress with the footpath construction and park reinstatements.

The footpath by the coffee hut that has been closed for the last week should be opened up by the end of today.

You'll also notice that the cabins will be removed and replaced by smaller and the working area will be significanty reduced. In the near future, we will be installing park benches in the area where the cabins currently sit.

Hope you enjoy the weekend.

Tony