I arrived at Landmark on the 28 of May 2012, for a week of work experience, hoping to get an idea of the sort of things I would be faced with in working life. What really happened, though, was I met a group of really great people, working together in the friendliest workplace I have ever seen. Not only did I meet fantastic people, but I went on some really interesting site trips. On Wednesday, I went to Avonmouth port, near the Severn Estuary, looking for birds like the Oystercatcher and the Ringed Plover. We were very lucky to actually see a Ringed Plover, as it is a rare bird, and spotting a mother and chicks was an amazing find. We also looked at the existing wind turbines at the site, only metres from where we saw the rare birds. It was strange to think that birds would want to nest near such a huge structure, but we were just pleased to see them nesting.
Tom on site
On Thursday, I went to three solar PV parks to check the condition of the planting that was done to hide the panels from view, and to compare the photomontages created a year ago, before the PV park was built, with the actual photos of the park at the present time. Firstly, we drove to a group of fields near Puriton, where the solar panels stretched through 3 large fields. There must have been about 300 panels in each field, making the total number of panels close to 1000! We then moved on to Summerway Drove, another park, slightly smaller but still full of panels. We again looked at the quality of the planting that was done, and took photographs to compare with the photomontages. Afterwards, we moved on to the location of the final PV Park at Parkwood Farm near Glastonbury. We didn’t get very long at this park, as we got a call from the landowner telling us that our car was blocking the entrance to the farm, so we decided it was probably time to go.
All throughout the week, I was very busy doing really interesting things, and any time I wasn’t busy I was allowed to read through current projects, and even do some maths revision for an exam the following week!
Altogether, I had a brilliant time at Landmark, enjoying every moment, and found it only fitting to bake a cake for the office at the end of the week as the least I could do. Either there’s something dodgy in the vast amounts of tea consumed by the company, or they really are great people, intent on making work experience a real experience to remember.
By Tom Dunn, student at Cotham School
Footnote from the Managing Director: The above was written by Tom without any prompting. Further, it is completely unedited. It is clear that he picked a good week to spend time with us – alas not all our time is quite so glamorous and we do find ourselves being less “friendly” on occasions. Nonetheless the above commentary is especially rewarding reading for us and it does make us realise how fortunate we are and in what we do. Thanks for spending a week with us Tom – it was a pleasure having you. Oh, and a big thanks for your superbly baked apple and cinnamon cake!
