I've been asked by a management company to quote for 2x pond clearouts on a housing estate. They do the grounds maintenance on the estate but want to tender the pond tidy ups out.
Its unusual work for me outside my usual remit, but work is dire at the moment so i have to look at every option. Could be an interesting job but concerned there may be pitfalls.
The brief is to clean them up so they look like ponds again.
The ponds are on different areas of the housing estate.
Both look to be natural ponds and on inspection i don't see any form of liner or hardware.
Pond 1 8m x 3m approx is overgrown with what looks like a pampus type plant. Sure someone can correct me. This has been planted around the edges but has invaded approx 90% of the pond. I tried to pull some up but it is well rooted in there. There did not appear to be much else in the way of planting.
Around the edge of the pond are a series of cornus shrubs which restrict access on one side.
There a various manholes in the area but i couldn't find a water source.
Its very low on water. Looks as if it should have 1-2ft more water depth.
Pond 2 13m x 3m approx seems to have no water in it. I met a resident who lives next to the pond and he informed me that before xmas it had water in it and that it is servived by a natural spring. However there is no water now.
This pond looks to be mainly full of leaves from a nearby tree and is damp and silty under the leaves from what i could see.
I've not done this type of work before but researching it looks like my original thoughts might be correct.
I wqs thinking to get a digger in to clear out the plant and silt debris before filling up with retained water(not that there is much of that) and fresh water.
How much of the plant life at the edge do i leave as surely it will invade the pond again.
Also what do i do to refill the ponds as it does'nt look like there is access to water on site and it would be tanker loads of water to fill.
How long would you allow to do this kind of job and what manpower would you assign to it.
I'll post some images below.
All thoughts gratefully received.
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Ive done this before for a small performed pond but budget was very low stinky job and back breaking using buckets didnt really make much money at all under 150.. Sounds like bull rushes the plants. I not sure its got the budget you think... but maybe it has hard to say. Without a tap seem a bit strange..
Thanks Ian. I reckon theres at least a couple days (maybe more) per pond for 3men, plus digger, plus skips for waste to clear these out and i still need to work out the water situation for refilling
Yea I suppose so I didn't see the pics right away .
looks bit more work with the pics.. I would enquire about water source before even thinking of it.
Checked and no water source so will need water tankered in.
Alarm bells for me, having dealt with management companies before. The 'ponds' have obviously never been cleaned out, or been within the grounds maintenance framework. Budget will likely be nil to non existent (although I may be wrong).... Theres a reason why these jobs just get left....
Yes alarm bells for me too. The company i'm dealing with undertake the grounds maintenance so i wonder why they have not done this as part of their ongoing maintenance. I will price it healthy and if i get it great and if not then no great loss. Still interested to hear of others experience with this type of work.
I posted a reply, but have deleted it.
The photos had not loaded correctly and now they have having looked at them I would say that those are SUDS Sustainable Urban Drainage retention ponds to take the surface water from the housing estate, I doubt they were ever designed and built to be water tight.
Tidy them up by all means, but don’t give any assurances about making them hold water.
Andy
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