It's November and the first house walls are six foot high

Hot off the press, these photo's were taken just before today's progress meeting with the contractors and design team.  The walls of terrace A are now rising - one leaf of the cavity wall goes up, then the insulaltion is fitted with the basalt cavity ties passing though it, before the other leaf of the wall is built.

Terrace A is actually a couple of weeks behind programme at the moment, but enough progress has been made to get a good feel for this part of the street, and also to see that there will be a good view from the north bedrooms of terrace A over the bike store to the fields and trees beyond.

The next picture shows the retaining wall that will be at the back of the common house toilets and guest rooms being propped whist it is underpinned.  The floor of the common house main building is in the foreground.

Meanwhile the rock anchoring to the retaining wall behind Terrace F, the 3 storey units, has been completed.  This wall isn't going anywhere!

Terrace B is also making progress.  These are the foundations of plot 10:-

The weather hasn't been the best, and there is a lot of water about.  Fortunately the fishing season is now over and no one else needs to pass through the site

We've had some sample gabion baskets made up.  The one on the left is made up of the crushed remains of the buildings we demolished whilst the one on the right is from sandstone from the site.  Unfortunately there is unlikely to be enough material from the site suitable for putting in gabions, especially as it is unlikely that we will be able to use brick at the front of gabions due to the risk of weathering...

so we are also looking at using some imported material.  In the photo below we have limestone in the gabion basket to the front and sandstone in the one to the rear.  Despite the fact we are in a sandstone area in Halton Gorge, the nearest quarries, around the Kellets, are limestone.  Ironically the sandstone has to be transported from a quarry near Chorley.  On the left is the reclaimed sandstone.  We are looking in more detail at the costs, aesthetics and environmental impacts of the various options before taking a decision.

http://www.lancastercohousing.org.uk/