Newts are being moved to a new home during the next few weeks in some of the wetter areas of the scheme. These two will be moved a few metres from where they were captured, to the other side of a protective fence that will keep them out of the works area when work starts on one of the scheme cycleways next year. Work with the newts is carried out by an ecologist under a licence from Natural England.
Following a local media headline that ‘work on the Relief Road is about to get noisy’ the Weymouth Relief Road team is reassuring local residents that night working to lift railway bridge beams into place near Manor Roundabout should not keep them awake at night.
As we’ll be working over the railway line we can only do the work at night. The point of the team’s news release to local media was to tell residents about the work, so they knew what was happening if they saw lights or trucks moving about in the middle of the night. Residents close to the area have been informed of the works taking place by letter. As with any construction work there will be some noise as the beams are lifted into place, but it should be kept to a minimum – apart from our responsibility to the local community, the planning authority wouldn’t allow noisy work overnight.
Please comment below if you have any questions.
Night work will start on Monday 2 November to lift the Manor Railway Bridge beams into place.
The work has to be done at night when the railway line is not in use and the power can be switched off.
Read more about it here.
Work is progressing on the improvements to the bridleway which runs alongside Two Mile Coppice.
Here you can see the drainage layer of chalk, which has reused material from the Ridgeway.
The final surfacing will be Mendip stone or something equally pretty.
Chalk surfacing as part of the base of the road has reached Icen Lane, where extensive drainage works are also underway.
Drainage for the farm fields in the area is being put in place, and just north of Littlemoor the final earth excavation is ongoing to create balancing ponds. These will capture water from the road surface, using reeds and other planting to settle out any sediment before the water enters the Broadwey stream.
Piling for the Manor railway bridge finished in September and work on the abutments is going well.
It will take until spring 2010 for the bridge to be finished. Work next year will include connecting the bridge to the new Manor Roundabout and to the new Two Mile Roundabout.
Hay from Tidmoor Ranges at Chickerell, which is known to have a good range of wildflowers in it, has been spread over maize fields next to Horse Lynch Plantation, known locally as Teddy Bear Woods, as a seed source.
This will be supplemented with wildflower seeds, collected by Dorset County Council, to restore the fields to provide an abundance of local wildflowers.
The work follows a series of arson attacks over the summer in the relief road conservation area, which runs from just to the east of Horse Lynch Plantation across to the Dorset Wildlife Trust Reserve.
Read more about it here.
Work to remediate the disused Lodmoor north landfill is ongoing.
The impermeable membrane has been laid and covered with a clay capping layer on the south west corner of the landfill, and work is continuing to cover the rest of the landfill.
After the landfill is capped with clay, work to surface the rugby pitches and the park and ride area will start.
From today there is a new 20mph speed limit on the temporary Littlemoor diversionary road – it was previously 30mph.
The new speed limit has been put in place following concerns about speeding from local residents, and following the opening of the earthworks haul route across the diversionary road.
Work is starting this week on improvements to bridleway BR30, which runs along the edge of Two Mile Coppice.
No more than ten small to medium trees will be coppiced, they have been surveyed for their wildlife value and none of them are ancient.
Ultimately the work, which has been approved by Natural England, will provide a stable gravel surface, which will be useable all year round and ensure the safety of horse riders.
Read more here.
