Project Pipeline: County Durham and Tees Valley

Good afternoon

I thought I’d share an example of some positive community engagement that happened this week. At our recent Meet the Contractor event, we spoke to Heidi Varley from Pink’s Flower Farm who told us the recent dry weather was threatening her crop of flowers. She asked whether there was any way Farrans could help. It was a simple task for us to arrange a visit with our water bowser to fill her empty tanks, but it meant a lot to Heidi. She explained

“It is our mission at Pink’s Flower Farm to grow cut flowers in Teesdale sustainably. We are completely off-grid and rely on natural weather to operate. Now in Year 5, we have seen dramatic changes to the weather since we’ve started. This year has been a challenge: an extremely wet spring saw us lose our entire spring tulip crop to a fungal disease that thrives on damp weather. Now we are facing a drought. We gather rainwater and water our beds using a solar powered pump system, but our tanks ran dry last week. We cannot thank NWL and Farrans Construction enough for coming to our rescue. They have replenished our water tanks and given our flower beds a fantastic drink! Forever grateful.”

Steve Coates, Farrans Project Manager, said,

“We’re always looking for meaningful ways to engage with people in the communities where we work. We met Heidi at our Meet the Contractor event on 5 June, where she explained the water supplies at her flower farm were running low. We use a water bowser on site for dust suppression, so it was relatively easy for us to step in and refill Heidi’s water tanks. We’re going to be working in the area for the next two years, delivering the Project Pipeline: County Durham to Tees Valley on behalf of Northumbrian Water, and we hope we can support many other local projects during this time.”

Have a lovely weekend.

Karen Alexander

Farrans’ Community Business Partner