Bruce Monroe, the Environment Agency's Project Manager for the Greatham
Managed Retreat Scheme has contact me to provide an update on the project.
As members will note from his comments, due to unforseen circumstances the
breaching of the sea walls has had to be postponed. Bruce's report to me
states:
"A lot of activity has been happening on site in the past few months,
principally around the remediation of the historic brine wells across the
site and the spoil heap, investigation work, testing and excavating suitable
materials from the borrow pits area to provide the material for the
realigned flood embankments at the back of the site. We also now have the
Marine Works Licence from the MMO for the breach of the embankment in place,
and the EA Land Drainage Consent for the breach is in process.
Unfortunately, the brine wells remediation works is taking a lot longer than
originally anticipated, and we are not in a position to breach the existing
flood embankment along Greatham Creek this September as we had originally
intended. This is principally due to difficulties in accurately locating
the wells, the process of removing relic brine well shaft material, and
subsequent plugging of these shafts. This has unfortunately been a slow,
drawn out process, as each brine well shaft goes down to depths of 200m+ and
we have up to 60 to remediate. We have a legal duty, and specific condition
of our planning permission, to complete this remediation before we breach
the flood embankments and inundate the site. Given the ecological
constraints of no winter working, the breach will therefore be delayed until
2013. It is difficult to be definitive about a revised breach date at this
time, but it will need to take into account the ecological timing
restrictions (works restricted to April to October inclusive, and no breach
during the months of June or July).
I will continue to update you as we progress, but if you have any queries at
all in the meantime, please do not hesitate to drop me an email or give me a
ring."
Ted Parker