With the refurbishment of the filter vessel complete, it’s all been about boilers this week after the most productive “Big Help Out” event on Sunday 7th June. Much weeding, pruning and clearing was undertaken by a willing and enthusiastic crowd of supporters and we are very grateful to each one of you. The rescue manikins kept a watchful eye on both the young and old as everyone got to work.

Footpath before…
during….
……and after.
Overgrown!
Clearing…
Cleared.

The building inside is now smelling a lot sweeter and certainly a fair few spiders have been made homeless!

Special mention should go to those brilliant bakers who supplied many cakes and treats to keep everyone going! Diana Smillie, Paul Ryman, Alex Dobson, Kelly Sanders, Cilla Robertson and Elaine Chapple (courtesy of Layston Grove) are the names I can remember!

Tony Willis got to work on the sliding doors, which now open much easier, but the left one is running metal on metal, so will need replacing at some point.

Robin Dussek heard that the toilet cistern was leaking in the (not very) accessible changing room and set about trying to repair it. He has taken the syphon home to try and fettle it. Whilst his wife Anna, has kindly taken the cubicle curtains for a good wash. We look forward to seeing how the pair get on.

Yvonne Walker, Eoin Bell, Karen Burns and Tracey Matthews got to work pruning and cutting back the vegetation along the side of the building, adjoining the public footpath, removing the dense and invasive vegetation that was encroaching onto the pool property causing damage to the boundary fence, the guttering and the roof. It was also obstructing the public footpath in places. The clearance also allowed a litter pick of those areas that could not previously be reached.

Yvonne reported, “After checking for any nesting birds (there were only a couple of redundant nests), we cleared the top tier of scrub that was overhanging the pool property or actually weighing on the boundary fence and the roof. Ivy was also cut back, as it was penetrating the brick work and growing into the down pipe.
The removed vegetation was stacked on the opposite side of the path as a dead hedge, which will provide very good habitat for invertebrates and other wildlife.
The cut back canopy will regrow to a dense mid-storey which will provide ideal habitat for the next nesting season“

J Collyer Services are now on site and have successfully removed the old 1990’s vintage boilers. Well done to those who correctly identified the odd looking brown items on Facebook. They were in fact the heat exchangers from inside those boilers.

The new boiler modules have been put in place and the JCS technicians are now in the process of constructing the necessary pipework and pumps to bring them into operation.

Our application to Affinity Water for the new water connection has moved to the planning stage on their side and we are well on the way to getting our side completed, again thanks to the guys at Dr Heating. They are also busy getting to grips with the domestic side of the plumbing, planning the best way to proceed to achieve our vision of creating the facility we all want to see. 

More exciting things are planned for next week as focus will shift to the pool itself. The temporary safety scaffolding should be removed and the initial work to repair the tiles will  begin.