We got a wayleave for the 60m of field we were going to dig as shown blue on the map. This was exactly where the Core Route left the roadside verge for the first time since it left Barbon and started towards Dent. This is the red line on the map.

We had planned this based on a culvert crossing under the road, which we thought we had been really clever finding. It carried no water and was perfect.

When the contractor came, he had the rule that culverts weren’t allowed, and because the verge was better on the East side of the road, he moled under the road a lot earlier. The contractor was organised by B4RN and we had no control over decisions, and we knew nothing anyway. But that was the last time we used outside people and from then on, we had control and had the capability to direct things.

Meanwhile we had been scratching our heads wondering how to deal with a small but occasionally fierce stream we had to get across near the chamber DD105. This took a lot of figuring out, it was our first stream. (The route also had to be changed at the north end because of a long ridge of rock). We ended up building the purple line

If we had had more knowledge about what we had the authority to change, and more experience then we should have come up with the orange route on the map which skirts right round the top of our stream avoiding it entirely.

We now have enough knowledge to realise we could have put the chamber on the southern part of the field.

It increases the distance to the next chamber from 500m to 800m, but it’s only a 48f cable, that should go easily. And we know how the B4RN team work, there is plenty of room to work on the chamber over the wall, parking on a nice piece of verge there.