January Following on from the December visit of the Waterway Recover Group, two more of our volunteers, Peter Keen and Ian Hornby, completed their Dumper training - thanks to WRG's Malcolm Bridge returning to continue the instruction he had begun the previous month. Meanwhile, the rest of the Working Party cleared more of the cottage foundations.
February On our first visit of the month, Warrington Borough
Council provided us with a small skip, which we filled with rubbish and broken bricks to make
the site more tidy.
Later on in the month we returned to clear the front wall of the cottage ready for building to
start. Workers elsewhere on the site found an old mineral water bottle carrying the name
R. STOTBERT & SON ATHERTON. Do any of our readers have any details of this company?
A visit by the Borough's Health and Safety Officer towards the end of the month brought our
work on the site temporarily to a halt. Although he was happy with the way we were working,
he declared that the works must be classed as a Construction Site - and fenced accordingly,
by enclosing the work area with a 2 metre high fence.
March Now that no "construction" work could proceed, we took
the opportunity to carry out some surveying. A small party recorded the relative levels of the
lock cottage.
By the end of the month the Borough Council had provided us with the materials required for
the fencing-off demanded by their Health and Safety Officers.
April Over two Sundays we erected the fences. On the first we
dug holes, and positioned and concreted in the posts. On the second we attached the chain
link fencing to the now firm posts, leaving the site secure.
Hopefully we can now continue with the rebuilding of the cottage foundations, and the
improvement of the surrounding area.
Colin Greenall