View from home:

This time last year I was working on the ending to an illustrated novella. It was quite hard work but it seemed to going well, perhaps even gaining a finishing momentum. My makeshift home studio, in a residential cul-de-sac, functioned perfectly well as what Orwell described as “a good and quiet place to write”, but by August 2016 it was under constant siege from unapproved and damaging heavy construction traffic (Trucks). Other issues around intrusive, pointless & unapproved lighting also arose.

The novel stopped and this impromptu and unwanted visual / drawn diary took over as I tried to make sense of what was happening & sought answers. I stepped up documentation of the damage to our home and site activity (which started at 8:00 AM 6 days a week). Pored over the planning portal, gathering the nuances and loopholes within construction industry operating proceedures. On a daily basis I’ve spoken to, phoned, emailed or arranged visits for; the school, site manager, site foreman, site works, truck drives, construction company MD, construction company CEO, construction industry regulators, council project manager, council planning department, council traffic management, local councillors, our insures, their insurers, structural surveyor, our loss adjustor, their loss adjustor and trades people to do the extensive repairs.

The answer, in a well honed chorus, from the developer, the council and the industry in general has been:

1: It wasn’t us!

2: It didn’t happen!

3: We’ve got planning!

I put together this collection of drawings, in part, to try to draw a line under the experience – but from what I’ve learnt so far an amicable closure to this sad, sorry saga anytime soon is unlikely. The drawings are not about what a construction site looks like but more about the raw experience of living next to one that is damaging your property and your peace of mind. . . they are about being ignored and being constantly lied to.

It was them, they did do it, they didn’t have planning permission . . .