Western Depot Clean-up
Western Depot Clean-up Continues
by: Steve P
Having cleared the canal side area at Western Depot we were faced with a wall of brambles and foliage between the current perimeter fence and the actual boundary. Richard made a good start on this with hand tools but Monday saw him joined by Vince, Chris and Steve and the mini digger to try to speed up the process. Use of the brush cutter soon extended the “tunnel” toward the logging area, with the mini digger clearing the corner area of more stones and debris to make sufficient width to get it along the back of the depot
The mini digger was then moved to the logging area to attack the problem, and having scraped under their temporary sunshade (or rain cover?) managed to clear the fencing at the back to allow access, including a solid wrought iron section that even the digger struggled to lift.
This then allowed the logging team to support us to remove some small trees and ivy, so that by the end of the day the digger could get access down the side of the pill box to the back boundary, and we had almost created a path through all the way along the back fence.
Wednesday saw the work restart with new volunteers pressed into service, and Dave from the logging team supporting on chainsaw. The mini digger now managed to get all the way along the back fence to remove stumps and provide clear access, although one stump in particular proved a problem and required more than one coffee break to complete!
By the end of the day the cleared area had been extended past the back of the pill box with more trees, stumps and rubble being removed, and Reg came to inspect the work we think was quite impressed with the team’s progress.
The only casualty was the old corner fence post that came off worst while Vince was manoeuvring the mini digger – he duly signed this to record the event for posterity! Again, another great team effort resulting in real progress towards the plans for an enlarged Western Depot.
