Many of you will be aware that the drainage system taking waste water from the Village Hall has been blocking up fairly frequently.
A company was engaged to send a camera down the pipe work to ascertain just what was causing the problem and where it was located. According to the scan, roots had penetrated a section of the pitch-fibre pipe at a point under the trees at the edge of the children’s play area.
Remedial work was undertaken this week and unfortunately as soon as the work was started we realised that the camera scan had not given us an accurate picture and that the job was more complex than we had expected. The route of the pipe was not in the direction we were led to believe but went straight across to a point behind the bus shelter passing right underneath one of the supports for the junior swing.
A new section of pipe has now been laid from the hall to a new manhole situated behind the bus shelter with a slight bend to pass under the centre of the swing. The old pitch-fibre pipe was badly misshapen where it had flattened over the 50 years that it has been in place and it is thought that the section that has now been by-passed but remains under the swing is the area that has caused the problem probably due to damage during the construction of the swing or due to it being just inches away from the concrete surrounding one of the stanchions of the swing.
We are sorry that the additional work has resulted in our having to dig up more of the play area than we had expected, a temporary fence has been put in place to protect the area that we will have to re-seed. It will be appreciated if use of the swing could be kept to a minimum for the next 2 months until the area has recovered.
Our apologies to those whose pleasure we are temporarily restricting but please understand the work had to be undertaken.
Mike Brown
On behalf of UVHAT and the Parish Council