Totally baffled: 10 lorry traffic jam, again. 7th March 2020

This must be costing Cemex a fortune: up to 10 lorry drivers, plus a digger operator, twiddling their thumbs doing nothing (except burning diesel) as the former wait in a traffic jam.

For why?

Inert have removed the  two way vehicle track alongside the Blackwater footpath and the track alongside the lake. Instead they have replaced them with a single carriageway.  Thus, only one lorry at time can use it.

Up to 10 lorries will queue on the south side of the bailey bridge, waiting for one lorry to reverse some 100 yards west to the bulldozer, drop its load, drive back and cross the bailey bridge.  It's madness.  Three lorries can achieve the same throughput at a fraction of the price.

Two years ago there was both a two way vehicle track running along side the Blackwater footpath, with the option of a circular route along the lake. I saw as many as 20 lorries in operation at once, and restoration progress was rapid.

Now, only one lorry at a time uses the track, with restoration rates plummeting to glacial pace, schedules pushed back and costs to Inert/Cemex rocketing.

I am further baffled by why Inert are piling up spoil along the vehicle track.  I though the idea was to fill in Cormorant lake. The bulldozer diver also doubled up as a digger operator, but he was scraping soil back from the infill area and piling it up alongside the vehicle track?!?!?!?

My Wednesday stomp revealed a digger working on what was Finch pond. Again, I am taken with Inert flitting about the site, seemingly engaged on random tasks; this time building yet more piles of soil. It wasn't as if there was any landscaping going on i.e. the digger digging out the new, tiny Finch pond. Instead, our heavy earth mover was bringing in yet more stuff (not a lot, due to the traffic jam) for the digger to pile up.

Anyway, I did visit the site on Saturday, in light rain. This stuff is incessant. The amount of mud, again of quicksand consistency, is a sight to behold. I was unable to proceed along the vehicle track where the bulldozer was working this week. There was a sea of deep, thin porridge like mud that was inching its way up my wellies as I walked eastward - and that was before I reached the really churned up stuff where the bulldozer had been working.

I had to back track west, then gingerly clamber a low embankment to get to the south footpath, before proceeding east to the transformer, where upon I could get back onto the site. Though I stayed off the vehicle track, it was too muddy. I simply took a couple of photos, before getting back to the south footpath and heading back home.

Oh, the pump didn't appear to be on. Which is curious, as water levels were quite low in the lake.  I need to work out why.