Recently, some members of our project team and an engineer headed up to Dumfries and Galloway to remove an old AQ station and install a brand new one.
There were a number of challenges involved that resulted in quite a tricky operation including coordinating the logistics of it but also liaising with multiple parties both before and during the on-site work.
AURN as a background comparison site
The monitoring site in Eskdalemuir is not only used by the AURN (Automatic Urban and Rural Network – the UK’s largest automatic monitoring network and is the main network used for compliance) as background comparison site for measurements of NOx and Ozone on the network but is also a site used by the British Geological Survey to measure seismic activity as well as critical Met logical studies by the Met office. This meant the whole operation was one that needed great care and planning.
It was vitally important that the very sensitive Met equipment powered from the existing station was not off line for more than a day, something that was achieved within the timescale with the equipment only being offline for 6 hours. The weather was also a determining factor on when the operation could go ahead, so time was of the essence.
Not only did they need a 16-ton Tele-Handler to get the enclosure in place but the team had to be really careful to create the least amount of disturbance to the area and keep vehicle movement to an absolute minimum.
We’re pleased to report the project ran smoothly with everything going exactly to plan with all parties involved very happy with the results.
