Hitting rock bottom?

Today was an exciting day as the groundworks contractor Brian started work onsite.

The key tasks were:

1 - Create an entrance/driveway onto the site.
2 - Create a car parking area
3 - Excavate the garage space - this involved digging down 2.5metres and 8mx10m, so a substantial amount of soil.
4 - Level the ground round about the tanks
5 - Create a drainage channels on one side of the plot.

By CoB on Day 1 (Friday), we have most of the driveway cleared and ready for hardcore, with just the retaining wall to come down, and the garage founds started...

HOWEVER! We hit a problem. A very hard problem - rock. Once Brian had gone down about 0.5m, he struck rock, which covers most of the garage floor area. This is a real pain as it means either we get Brian to machine out the rock, which will take a lot of time (and money) and then dispose of the rock (more money), or we speak to planning and see if we can build the garage higher than planned - approx 2m higher.

Building on the rock itself should be very straightforward, allow a more simple foundation detail and mean we will be accessing the garage from the driveway, hence more secure. Having it higher will not spoil the outlook - it will still have a low pitched living roof, and the more exposed walls will be timber clad.

Our Planning Officer is a very helpful man, and quite solution focussed, so I shall need to speak to him and see,...watch this space!

Some pics of progress, including some 'before and after'...