Week Two: Widening the Lane
Week Two: Widening the LaneThe team continued work on the bellmouth this week and began widening the lane up towards the site.
A few faces on site:
You met some of the team in last week’s blog.
Also, on site this week were Craig of Raymond Brown, Sian our ecologist from Amber Environmental Consultancy in Swansea, Phil our archaeologist from Archaeology Wales, and Mick our site agent from Wind Prospect.
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The main jobs this week have been to continue with the bellmouth, widen the lane, pipe the ditch and construct the entrance into the field heading up towards the site. This entailed crossing a stream at the entrance to Plas Newydd. A culvert has been put in.
Raymond Brown set up a temporary site office at the bellmouth location.
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Here is the lane before and after widening. Thirty metres of hedge needed to be removed in order the make the track wide enough to bear right into the field. This hedge is being translocated to the bellmouth. It will be planted next week.
Sian, our ecologist, was monitoring the removal of the hedge and the widening of the lane. She was checking for wildlife (like dormice and toads) that might get harmed by the diggers; and ensuring that the hedge is carefully removed ready for translocation to the bellmouth. In all of the searches, widening and moving, no wildlife was harmed, moved or found. Word must be out on the ‘wildlife network’ to stay away!
Some pictures of the lane being widened. The stones are from the local Gilfach Goch quarry:
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And into the field
The weather has been pretty kind, but on Thursday it turned miserable – cold and rainy. The main job was preparing and constructing the culvert where the turbines will bear off from the lane and onto the fields. They needed to finish this on Thursday due to it being Easter weekend, and they couldn’t leave the residents at Plas Newydd without their entrance way. Here are a few pictures:
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At the Bellmouth:
At the bellmouth, the bank has been built up for the hedge, and the area levelled. Phil, our archaeologist has checked the site for any archaeological remains. He’ll be back to mark off the archaeological sites on the mountain to ensure they are not damaged by our construction team.
Raymond Brown have set up a temporary site office. The traffic lights have gone, so no more disruption to travellers, and those of you who are local will have seen the sign.
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On the mountain.
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Up on the mountain, Sian was checking for any potential damage to wildlife when the construction team start building the track . She relocated frogspawn from some of the large puddles on the hardened track. She also replanted some of the globally threatened Round Leaved Water Crowfoot in a place out of harm’s way. This will create an additional habitat for it and we are also confident it will continue to thrive in its original location as we are only replacing the culvert there.
A few Awel Co-op members visited the site during the week. Twins Mari and Fflur are the co-op’s youngest ‘members’ via their grandparents. We have re-opened the Share Offer, so if you’d like to invest for yourself or for your family, click here: Join Awel
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