Preparation for the construction of the Outbuildings included in the original Planning Permission but excluded from the first phase of Construction has been progressing slowly but steadily since the last post on this topic Preparing for ‘Phase 2’ in August 2024:

• The design of the buildings is very nearly identical to what was originally envisaged, but with a few minor adjustments to the internal layout
  • A dedicated ‘Plant Room’ is now going to be partitioned-off at the end of the Workshop, to provide a less dusty and more controlled environment for systems like the MVHR unit, the computer network devices, and the solar power storage batteries
  • Some of the internal door openings have been widened to make for easier access within the building
  • A rainwater harvesting system is now part of the design
• It proved especially problematic to find a structural engineering consultancy to take on the work of preparing the stormwater drainage design
  • The biggest component of this being the hydraulic modelling of future storm events in order to size the temporary storage required to ‘attenuate’ stormwater flows before discharging them off-site
  • All the local consultancy companies seemed too busy with other work to want to pick up this (relatively small) job
  • Manchester-based https://www.freeflush.co.uk offer a range of drainage-related Design services and were able to complete a design without needing to visit the site, based on supplied drawings and photographs; they completed their design last week
• A total of 5 local construction companies were approached to tender for the work
  • 3 of those provided decent quotes and https://www.jkdevelopmentsltd.co.uk have been selected to undertake the work
  • The J&K construction team are finishing up work on another project and are forecasting availability to start within the next week