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Projects 2013
Emergency Plan
We are still keen on developing an Emergency Plan for the village. We have made some progress but it needs some more work. If there is anyone who would like to have a go with this then please get in touch.
Working sessions
We are again planning to carry out some regular maintenance in and around East and West Hanney this year.
We plan to work from 09:00 until noon, and as usual, the location will depend upon what needs to be done. Please add these dates to your diaries. It would be great if everyone could do at least one session during the year as it then spreads the load out.
REMAINING DATES FOR 2013:
None.
We are looking for volunteers to organise each weekend, so please contact Stewart Scott on 01235 868503 or via the contact form.
Saturday 12th October
We thought we may be in for a very wet working party but the rain stopped at 9:00 and we had a good session with no rain at all. The team of Ian, Dickon, David, Bob, Philipa, Clive, Steve and Stewart took a short walk upstream of Weir Farm and tackled quite a large fallen tree.
The main trunk was probably the largest we have tackled and with half of it under water it was quite a job using only hand saws. However, we persevered and completed the job by 11:00. Nicky lifted out the largest section with the hydraulic arm of the JCB loader and the cuttings were neatly piled up. There was a lot of debris caught up in the tree including 52 cans and bottles which have now been sent for recycling.
We used some new long length gauntlets and these worked very well, keeping hands dry and providing good protection.
Saturday 14th September
Cancelled.
Saturday 10th August
We returned to the area at the far west of Church St, West Hanney. We used our industrial type drain rods and within a few minutes we found the outlet of the pipe that connects the ditch to the road drain . We dug out the ditch to a length of 7m so that is about 6in below the outlet of the drain pipe and we rodded the pipe out and removed a lot of sticky mud. A very profitable working session. Thanks to Ian, Dickon, Clive, Philippa, Hilary, Nicholas and Stewart for their hard work. It will be interesting to see how this reduces the amount of water collecting along the road at this corner. If you pass this way after some heavy rain let us know.
Saturday 13th July
We did some work on the ditch at the far end of Church Street in West Hanney. This area used to be a pond which had various names including Headings Pond. This was filled in in 1976. Currently the road drains into a ditch via a small diameter pipe.
The ditch was heavily overgrown and not very deep at all.
Chris Surman organised a skip and did some preparation work on Friday. Team B then came along on Saturday.
We filled the skip with a mixture of wood, soil and various bits of steel sheeting. The ditch is now clear enough to walk along but there is still a lot more soil to remove. We did not have enough time to find the pipe connection point so this will have to wait for next time.
A big thanks to Chris Surman, Paul Sayers, Paul Dyer, Clive Manvell, Clive Fewins, Stewart, Mafanwy Alan for bringing along his shredder and Will Messenger for the electricity.
Saturday 8th June
The last couple of working sessions have been quite hard and it looks like it will be a nice weekend so we have decided to cancel our meeting this month so we can all enjoy the good weather. Stewart Scott will be doing some very careful weeding by the iron bridge for an hour in the morning from 9-10. If anyone would like to join in it would be nice.
Saturday 11th May
We had an excellent day. We split into two teams. Bob, Hilary and Nicholas collected litter from the stream around the iron bridge and a separate team of Guy, Myfanwy, Ian, Dickon, Richard, Paul, Stella, Liz, David, Christian, Nicky and Stewart headed up stream from Weir Farm. There we removed a couple of fallen trees and collected up a substantial amount of litter. This included a plastic street waste bin, a lorry tyre, a wooden step ladder and 186 drinks containers.
Removal of the fallen trees sounds easy but was hard work and could not have been done without Nicky and the skillful driving of her tractor with the hydraulic boom and Guy and David who did not want to give up even for a break.
Richard Vause came from Germany, via Leicester, to talk about how to display uncertainty in flood risk maps and ended up in a pair of waders helping all morning. Thanks to everyone who arranged to talk to Richard in the afternoon.
A great effort from everyone, well done and thanks.
Photographs:
[View photo 1]
[View photo 2]
[View photo 3]
[View photo 4]
Saturday 20th April
We had such a big turnout of volunteers that we finished at 10:30!
Our aim was to remove some fallen trees and we did this as well as retrieving a very large tractor tyre and trailer wheel from the brook. After our exertions we had a drink and some chocolate biscuits that had started to melt in the strong sunshine.
A big thanks to Dave for carrying the equipment and to Patrick, Steve, Dave, Guy, Trevor, Pete, Meurig, Dickon, Ian, Alan, Paul, Clive, Graham, Myfanwy and Stewart.
Saturday 9th March
We had an excellent morning looking at some of the storm water drains in West Hanney. A big thanks to Ian and Dickon Green, Trevor Brettell, Graham Garner, Hilary Box, Chris Surman, Alan Miles, Clive Fewins, Eddie Wilkinson, Paul Sayers and Stewart Scott.
First we looked at the drains at The Green and found the following:-
- The drain connection from the south side to the North side is still blocked despite the repair work carried out recently by OCC.
- The large 9ft? Diameter concrete chamber had a bottom layer of mud at least 2ft6in deep. This had a small pipe leading northwards but could not be rodded out and may be blocked, this headed off in a strange direction but may be dog legged. The manhole cover is broken.
- The manhole cover at the edge of church farm is a concrete slab and difficult to lift. There looked like two connections apart from the connection to the farm but these seemed to be full of mud.
- The road drain on church road discharges into a small chamber with no outgoing pipe. The chamber had solid walls and bottom. The thick mud in the bottom was removed but the chamber does not seem to be able to act as a soak away. There was also a connection into this chamber from the old rectory.
We then moved up to the corner of Main Street and The Meads. Team A led by Alan started to rod out the culverts running alongside Main Street and got very enthusiastic and went all the way back to the green. They found two very large plastics sheets in one culvert section. There is also a strange hump in the pipe on the last section.
Whilst they were doing that Stewart's team traced the drains back from the corner of Main Street along The Meads. The very high levels of water made rodding difficult. After they had a coffee break they did have a go at the storm drain across the grass to the Main Street ditch. However this is blocked half way and could be tree roots.
We found the 2m long, 1 inch diameter drain rods excellent for the long straight runs but more difficult to get started on pipes where access was vertical and a tight bend was required at the start. It may be best to use a smaller diameter more flexible end to get the rods started.
We all met back at the green for chocolate cakes and then packed up. A good session exploring the drain system. Thanks again to everyone and we are sorry team A missed the coffees.
Follow up actions are as follows:-
1. Contact OCC about the blocked pipe that runs under the road.
2. Can we modify the chamber at the end of church street to be a proper soak away?
3. Investigate the pipe connections to and from the concrete chamber with more flexible rod end and when water levels are lower.
4. Arrange for removal of thick mud from bottom of concrete chamber. OPC?
5. Try again to rod out the connections from under the concrete cover at the bottom of church farm to see where they connect to.
6. Try to determine what is the hump section we found, and how it can be removed.
7. Replace broken manhole cover.
8. Send a sketch and photographs of what we found to County and District Council.
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