Many residents will have noticed the commencement of work at Underhill where groundworks are underway prior to the construction of 4 affordable units (2 two-bedroomed and 2 three-bedroomed houses). Current works are being undertaken with the assistance of grants from the Community Led Housing Fund managed by SLDC.

Meanwhile, two of the building plots at Church Road have been sold and two at Cotes are sold subject to contract leaving just one plot at each site left for sale. Once funds from the sale of these plots are secured, the Project will move on to the construction phase of the new Village Hall where current work is focussing on the design and build of the boundary walls. The Project is looking forward to considerable progress during the course of the year.

Further update

Engineering works to prepare the site and retaining walls have been ongoing before and after Christmas. For those with an interest in the detail an explanation is given below:

Pictures show the start of retaining wall at Underhill. The two rows of bars sticking up are ‘L‘ bars which are all welded on individually to the horizontal mesh which sits a couple of inches above the concrete. This concrete is only there to give a level, clean base to work from.

There are U shaped bars to the sides which are welded on horizontally onto which a second layer of mesh will sit. The wall is stepped up nearer to the cottage end, due to required finished levels and rock.

Concrete will be filled level to the top of the boards at either side. The ‘L’ or starter bars will be left sticking through the concrete from which he will add two vertical rows of weld mesh. The shuttering boards will then be placed either side of this mesh but not touching these boards and will be filled with concrete. This will be done in sections. There is a long toe of concrete at the Inside of the wall and a smaller heal at the rear to give the wall its stability.

The last 3 pictures show the concrete poured to prove over the holidays.