The need to dredge became apparent during our move to Station Approach and the new access areas we would then be using. The lake has never been deep but it was recognised as problematic and too shallow in many areas that we would be using more frequently. While the Clubhouse build was going on the committee started to look at options to clean up the lake.
Our landlords Linden Homes supported our decision to dredge certain areas and helped greatly with the funding for this mammoth project. This allowed us to go to tender and subsequently engage Land and Water, the UK’s largest water and civil engineering company, to help us clear things up.
Everything was planned for early November with access to the water gained by our kind neighbours, Land & Water supplied a floating digger barge and driver who worked alongside a local driver in the land based long reach digger. The used the 2 weeks to remove the shallow area in front of the clubhouse and and shrink the island this has greatly increased the sailing area as can be seen from the over head photo at the end of this post.
Our ever faithful membership volunteered again to support the operation by testing depths, assisting with the clean-up and completing other odd jobs.
Having used the lake during the summer for Sunday sailing we learnt one of our
members had a drone that they bought during the first lockdown. Thanks to them for providing these excellent shots of the diggers in action.
Thank you to all the members who got involved and special thanks to Chris for manging the project and to Margaret who made a hot lunch for each day followed by cake for the afternoons. One of the many reasons it is worth volunteering with WWYSA!
