Michael had a wonderful afternoon out last Friday, on our site in Reading, 350 Basingstoke Road. He got to play with lots of big shiny mechanical thingys and took lots of photos to show us.

Before showing you too many new pictures, here’s an old one to remind you what the site looked like before we got going on it …

and what it will look like when we’re done.

Michael’s favourite machine in use at the site at the moment is a crusher, which has a pretty nifty device to separate out the metal that was embedded in the concrete.

Concrete chunks are dropped into the crusher at the yellow arrow, get chewed up in the body of the machine and exit at the blue arrow. That’s where the nifty magnet is hiding under a crossways conveyor belt which drops the metal refuse to the side. The crushed concrete continues up the lengthways conveyor belt and is dropped off the end at the red arrow. If anyone wants to volunteer, I could do with a ton or so of that crushed hardcore delivered to my home, before I re-gravel the back garden.

As you can see, the site is crawling with diggers, digging. I can see Michael visiting on a regular basis, just to keep an eye on it all.

Andy is particularly proud to see the hoardings that surround the site. It’s good to see your name up in lights!

There will be lots more progress reports as the site develops and I’m sure Michael will be taking lots more pictures for us. Keep coming back to check for more news.