Apr 24th, 2024

Author: donich_admin

Waste water substation

There is what is rather euphemistically called a “waste water substation” about 200m away from the end of our drive. This is what we used to call a small sewage works. On a side topic, when I was a child at secondary school we were given the option of going on two educational visits to a large sewage system. The visit (co-incidentally) involved missing double maths, so for the first visit, the take up rate was 100%. The smell and graphic descriptions of the process during the first visit, were so horrendous, that the take up for the second visit (again missing double maths) was only about 40%. I must have had a strong stomach or a deep hatred for maths, because I went on both.

Anyway the one near us was unobtrusive, silent and odourless for many years, and hidden as it was behind a screen of trees, we didn’t think anything of it. Then about three years ago it started to struggle. Often when you walked past it you could hear a loudish grinding noise, and in the summer it started to smell quite bad. Neither of these things actually affected us much, although I did report problems to the water board a couple of times.

The hardware for the plant was obviously on the way out, because last year we found out quite by accident that the water board were planning to replace the whole thing. I was pretty pissed off that we hadn’t received a neighbour notification for the planning permission (apparently the water board don’t know how to do a Registers of Scotland search for nearby properties), but I accepted that the work needs to be done. So we only commented on the planning application that they needed to make sure to replace any trees they took out, and that they needed to make sure that if they needed to block our access road that they made sure any couriers were rerouted through the arboretum. They agreed to both of these.

Anyway – they started work on Monday by cutting down part of the tree screen. This screen was actually planted by Jack Ewing who was the previous owner of Donich Lodge.

This was the view before.  Unfortunately R seems to have taken it from the side.

This is it with the trees cut away.  The correct view facing our house this time.

 

As of when the last photo was taken, they hadn’t removed the front row of trees, and as I didn’t think from their diagrams that they would need to,  I am hopeful that they will leave them in place.  Maybe not though, because I could hear further activity yesterday.  Unfortunately R is away and I can’t go down and check – I’ll get him to take another photo when he gets back.