Work in Progress

If you have visited the centre within the last month or two you may have noticed the sound of a drill, the smell of fresh paint and the crime-scene-like view of warning tape strewn across the inner courtyard. What has been going on I hear you ask? Well, the short answer is…LOTS!

It all started back in February when contractors arrived on site to do a make-over on our Fish Pond. The Fish Pond is the last pond in our Wetland Ecosystem Treatment (W.E.T.) System, which processes all of the centre’s liquid waste, and as such can become very eutrophic. Over the years, duckweed (Lemna sp.) has claimed the pond surface - turning it green - and the pond bed had accumulated a large layer of silt. Now, anyone who has done any pond-dipping in our W.E.T. system will know that the Malvern nets are great for catching invertebrates and…skimming off the duckweed! If you imagine a bigger, flatter net doing the skimming and you have the solution to creating a clearer pond. Next Siltex, a form of Calcium Carbonate, was mixed into the pond. This has two main benefits: one, it raises the pH of the pond thus making it harder for the Duckweed to grow (prefers acidic conditions) and two; it creates a better environment for micro-organisms to thrive and digest the organic matter, therefore reducing the volume of silt. We are hoping that this work will increase the oxygen in the pond, therefore ensuring the survival of the fish, and overall increasing the biodiversity in the pond.

Our clear Fish Pond.

In March, we hosted sixteen keen volunteers from Birmingham University Conservation Volunteers, who kindly helped the Preston Montford team to complete a variety of tasks. The volunteers spent a busy weekend helping to remove excess vegetation from our field pond, pollarding the willow classroom, creating strong willow fences around the garden beds in the sensory garden and trimming one of our boundary hedges. The group had a jolly time and even the rain didn’t dampen their spirits.

Down in our waterproof store, our maintenance team have been carrying out a master-plan project. The store is located in the cellar of the Queen Anne House and, as such, can be sometime viewed as a dark and creepy place by our younger guests. So we have tried to create a more welcoming and friendly space. The team began by re-jigging the fixtures in the drying room to create a more open space for people to move around in. Then they went around the waterproof store painting all of the brick walls white to seal them, helping to prevent the creation of brick dust, and to give the room a lighter, fresher look. The Education team had mentioned that distributing kit to large groups was sometimes quite chaotic, so the maintenance team constructed a half-stable door to section off the storage area and a hatch through to the drying room. This will hopefully mean that a solo staff member can collect items efficiently and hand out to guests queuing at the door. If there are multiple staff members then one person can take the order, name and money at the door and the other staff members can work as a team to hand-out items or exchange items for a different size at the hatch. To aid the comfort of our guests the maintenance team have been building benches to be used whilst trying on wellingtons or waders and in the upcoming months they will hopefully re-paint the floor. The Education Team will then plan the next phase, which is to add some water-themed/field-site themed artwork to one of the walls.

Waterproof Store Project. Clockwise from top left: Re-jig of fixtures in the drying room, new benches, newly built hatch, the hatch painted and the half-stable door.

Talking of walls…on the ground floor of Darwin, we noticed that the paintwork was bobbling and flaking off – never a good sign! So two tradespeople came in to have a look. On day one they hammered the noticeboards off of the walls and drilled away the old plaster, creating plumes of dust and causing a headache in the neighbouring Education Office – the team quickly de-camped to the peace and quiet of Caradoc classroom! They also smeared on a black substance, which we can only assume was some sort of damp-prevention layer. On day two, the tradesmen beautifully re-plastered the corridor with an expertly smooth finish. Once the plaster had dried, our maintenance team then spent two days painting the walls magnolia once more. I think they’ll never want to see a paintbrush again after this month is over!

Re-attaching the noticeboards and painting the walls.

Lastly, outside of Darwin we have an impressive Beech tree that just got a little too big for its boots, well…roots. Beech trees are notorious for dropping their limbs and the long branches were tapping against the bedroom windows of the Darwin building. Therefore, Adrian (our Head of Centre) made the decision to call in a tree surgeon to give it a ‘trim’ to ensure the safety of all staff and visitors. The inner courtyard from Reception to the Darwin Building was cornered off with warning tape and a cherry-picker was brought on site for a couple of days. The tree surgeons then worked their way around the tree, reducing it by approximately 30%.

The Beech tree and the warning barriers.

We are really proud of what has been achieved in the last month or two, and hope that on your next visit you can spot the differences. We still have more plans in the pipeline, meaning that our work is forever in progress to ensure that our customers have the best experiences here at FSC Preston Montford.