What we learn on site, written down while it is still fresh. New entries most months.
The reed beds went in last March. Since then the ecologist's list has grown to lapwing, snipe, three kinds of dragonfly and a heron that has not left. The water leaving the site is cleaner than the water arriving, which was the point, and the footpath round the edge now has regulars.
Sara Lindqvist keeps a 1:500 model of every site on the long table in our Leeds office. She says drawings hide slopes and models do not, and that most of the decisions about where the water goes were made by pushing cardboard around before a single line was drawn.
Four roofs, 3.1 megawatts of generation and a private wire to each occupier. Modelled across a Wakefield year, the park runs a surplus in eleven months. December is the exception, and we would rather say so than round it.
The access at Don comes straight off the A-road, with the village lane closed to anything over 7.5 tonnes at our cost. The parish council wrote in support of the application. It was the first time their clerk could remember doing so for a warehouse.
It costs more up front, it needs a proper fire strategy, and the insurer will ask questions. It also weathers to silver, stores carbon, and makes the building look like it belongs beside a river rather than a runway. Three parks in, we would not go back.
Our development director on why Halden will only ever run four parks at once, what he looks for in a site (a river, a motorway, and a parish council that will talk), and the one deal he is glad we walked away from.