Yorkshire Wildlife Trust - the worst landscaping we have ever seen

Just about sums it up really...a brew and a loo. Karen did go to the loo (which took some finding) and was surprised that THERE WAS NO LOO ROLL !!!!  Well, it only cost just over a £million, perhaps they couldn't afford any !  The cafe was packed with coffee drinkers...not a muddy boot or pair of binoculars in sight. Thought there would have been a YWT member of staff on 'meet and greet duty' but they were all hiding behind the 'staff only' door.

We have always been against the location of the new visitors centre and opposed both planning applications. We have watched it being built over the year, and afraid we couldn't find anything complimentary or positive to say about it. It opened a couple of weeks ago so after seeing a few quality birds at Easington, we decided to drive down and take a look for ourselves. We couldn't believe it. Did it really take over a year to build this, with a cost of over a million quid and just look at the landscaping - it's the worst we have ever seen and still resembles a building site yet must be finished as the site is now totally open.

Well......just take a look at this landscaping. Recon the landscapers need to go to Specsavers !

Not a litter bin or dog poo bin on the whole site. 

Do you really call this finished?  Just a car park of mud.  YWT had a blank canvas and this is the best they could come up with. Shocking. 

Gaps and more gaps. Trip hazards for the not so steady. Shouldn't the soil, stones and concrete all be the same height - wouldn't that look better ?  No offence, but this looks like a blind person has done the landscaping.  

Great gullys of standing water on uneven ground, potholed and scattered with builders rubble still laying around. Have the contractors done the job, took the money and run ? Certainly looks like it.

What a sub-standard level of work. I would be ashamed to put my name to this landscaping.

Canal Scrape car park 

Lots of parking lost in the Canal Scrape car park. Stuff just left, looks an absolute tip.  

Potholes that you could disappear in, rubble left, massive gaps round each light - disgraceful. Did YWT actually pay for this ? And why the random bin in the car park ?

Think this is meant to be a passing place but not too sure. Horrendous tree work, various heights of tarmac and more rubble left on the grass verge. A job not finished, and never will be.

Just look at this for the lowest standard of work possible. This must have been inspected by a planning officer and signed off ?? Beggars belief that this is acceptable.  

YWT haven't even bothered to plant these trees, simply healed them in a corner hoping that no-one notices...but we did ! 

So this is what they call tree planting around the building...simply push a twig into the grass. These will go through the mower at the first cut.

Now heaven only knows what this is in the car park. A pond or simply a run off for surplus water. Whatever it is, it looks a mess.  

This is the car park.  On a score out of 10 for a finished job, recon it deserves nill points !

 Shocking standard of work

This is the pay point for the car park. To get to it you have to step into 2 inches of mud. We spoke to a lady in the car park who had refused to pay as she didn't want to get her shoes muddy !!  Just wonder why it wasn't placed closer to the path being as paying to park is so important to the YWT? 

An absolute mess of sub-standard work. There is nothing good to say about it, not a single thing. 

This is Well Field. You can see it is now totally covered in heaps of spoil from the visitors centre construction. YWT had said earlier in the planning phase that they couldn't disturb this field as it was used by whimbrel at times to feed and roost.....not anymore it ain't. It now resembles a dumping ground. Surely there must have been a planning condition on the disposal of the spoil ?  Well, you would think that was a vital condition in such a sensitive area.....but after over 20 years in a local government Environment Team and with Simon a professional landscape gardener for 40 years - what do we know !

Quality .....no-one in their right mind would pay for this landscaping job. Bet the contractors had arrows through their hats !