Steady progress toward 31 March!

Expressly interesting
Well, you would believe it – the project for the Registered Social Landlord continues to take shape:
· I have recovered a lot of the OS MasterMap data, but there’s more to go,
· I have a number of would-be assessors, but I still need more if you’d like to contact me,
· the plan of attack is now established, assessors go into the field with as much research information as possible, annotate a sketch and compile their list of the scheme’s attributes.

So far all the planning seems to have been worthwhile - I hope that my client will end up smiling!
I’ve fitted in a quick tree survey for a primary school in Nottingham – I was surprised at the highly visible security measures that were in place, including the very secure fence, the locked gates, the video controlled entrances. Having said that, the playing field, especially at a distance from the school, was to my eye a disgrace – there was debris all around the margins which must have come flying over the rear garden boundaries – not the sort of environment that I would want my children to be playing in. I couldn’t quite connect the two ideas – the security and yet the casual acceptance of a litter strewn (and so dangerous) playing field.

As I expected the thunderous silence following my offer to a London borough to oversee the preparation of two sets of contract documents has meant that negotiations have been concluded with another party. Oh well, I’ve still got an opportunity to tender for the “custodial” contract, and Glendale Countryside will be able to bid for the service delivery contract.

I’m aware that the deadline for the preparation of my piece about infections for the Tree Diseases Conference organised by the RFS/RASE in April is looming. Please do keep sending your observations in to me so that my presentation can be as helpful as possible to those in the audience who are listening.

Practically speaking
The motherboard for one of (well, so far our only!) our hand-held tablet pc has failed; its replacement will add time to the project in the Midlands, where I’ve been asked to capture 7000 records.

The small service delivery contract that I was overseeing has now been completed and the Certificate of Practical Completion has been issued.

I have not heard anything for a while about the revised scheme for planning consent in Nuneaton; I remain hopeful that the development will get the green light.

Operation Moshtarak has become a delay event – let me explain!

As far as I can tell the satellites and bandwidth used to provide the international global information and positioning systems are all military, the availability of bandwidth to civilian users is discretionary (albeit prioritised).

My two surveyors in Oxford are used to seeing 12 satellites on their handheld data loggers, but when Moshtarak kicked off, and then when the Princess Royal went to Afghanistan a fortnight later, they could only locate three satellites, and their ability to work was severely compromised as a result. No, I don’t want to go back to pen and paper but . . .