Chris and Bev – Heads in the Clouds

Today Paige and Mark arrived with a digger and dump truck to do some more groundworks. The plan had been that we’d be ready by now to build the foundations for the outbuildings. We’ve been granted planning consent for this, but one of the conditions is that our CEMP – a construction environmental management plan – must be signed off by Wiltshire Council’s ecologists before we start work. We submitted this document (along with a £34 fee) nearly a month ago and are still waiting for someone to read it …

Fortunately we can keep the guys busy for a few days while we wait, but there seems to be no “real world” understanding of the potential difficulties and costs that the Council’s delays could cause to a work programme. The first “while we’re waiting” job Paige and Mark did was to lower and grade the levels outside the west gate, scraping back decades of accumulated soil.

Then they moved on to digging up yet more concrete – another stable hardstanding and the edging to the drive. This will all be crushed along with the bungalow.

We’ve bought some windows on ebay for the garden store and another for the outside loo in an effort to manage the outbuildings budget (ahem!). Chris is smartening these up and making use of the conservatory while we can. We’ll miss this useful ‘workshop’. The good news is that we have a date next week for the roof to come off and the bungalow will then be demolished the week after. We urgently need to find some more storage for the stuff that’s currently in the bungalow.