Week commencing 10 January has been dry at last and the heavy machinery is in full throttle! Sanctus has been on site 16 weeks now and hampered at every turn by the weather but there is now more to show than just fencing, signage, baulks of timber forming crawler platforms, sumps and pumps, and test excavations on 250 year old sluices.
The white amphibious excavator is the smaller of the machines at work this week: a rare and expensive beast, one of only 2 in the country apparently. It has been busy shovelling up silt to form a levee to steer the flow of the Porter and free up the biggest part of the drying silt for removals next week.
The bigger heavier yellow crane has at last got a more stable crawler platform to work from and yesterday was busy heaving out a temporary sump by the millrace, to the astonishment of the public strollng round the dam.
Next week we should see silt removals to Beighton underway, so expect vehicle movements along the bridlepath and up Woodcliffe . Rain is not forecast so fingers crossed for impressive progress!
Thanks to Mike Halliwell & David Curry for the pictures
Ann le Sage
Chair FoPV