July newsletter

Water

I today met the project manager and contractor on site, to give them a key and to discuss the coming works.

Work should begin within a couple of days. The contractors will fit further isolating stopcocks in the suspect length of pipe to narrow down the location of the leak. This will involve excavations on the main track, and so vehicular access won’t be possible beyond the point of the works. There will also be interruptions to the site water supply of typically two hours during the fitting of the stopcocks.

The largest vehicle used will be transit van size I was informed, so this shouldn’t present any particular problem, but everyone’s advised to take due care all the same, and to supervise children appropriately in the vicinity of the works.

Manure

We’d been told by the Riding School management that the next clearance of manure wouldn’t involve PPA, as it was going to “other allotments”.

However, while I was waiting to meet the above my ‘phone rang, and it was the manager of CRS. Apparently the “other allotments” – Pontcanna ‘A’ it turned out – couldn’t take all of the manure and she asked if it would be possible to deliver to PPA. She was lucky that I was there, as otherwise I’d not have been available to do this supervision. (Since Sue’s retirement as Site Representative we’d made clear that it was time – after some years now – for someone else to take on this aspect of the Site Representative’s remit.)

Since Llandaff Fields allotments and Pontcanna ‘A’ – even together – have nothing like the number of tenants that PPA does it’s understandable that their need for manure may not accommodate all that needs disposal by CRS. So we can perhaps expect deliveries to continue fairly regularly in future. Indeed, the amount delivered today was substantial.

Communal tools, wheelbarrows, trolleys etc.

Plot holder Michael McGuone very kindly restored two abandoned wheelbarrows to good serviceable condition, and left these by the southeast manure pen for his fellow gardeners to use communally. Sadly, these quickly disappeared. Whether these were taken and kept for personal use by PPA tenants or taken off site isn’t known. One of the new green trolleys has also vanished. The other is safe, but not available for use just at the moment, and further new ones have been bought by PPAA Committee for service soon.

Would everyone please note then, that such things left by the pens are for communal use by PPA gardeners only, and not to give away, whether for private use or for community projects elsewhere in Cardiff.

Scrap metal collections

Since the general tidy up and removal of waste at the southeast end of site, the collection point for any scrap metal is now immediately to the right of, rather than in front of the blue shipping container.

(Plot holders are reminded, that there isn’t any collection, or on-site recycling facility for any other unwanted materials.)

Martin P

Admin.