Fermain wall repairs ‘a huge project’, says E&I

The hole appeared when a section of the wall collapsed during storms in January 2014.

E&I has said it has a large programme of infrastructure investments to consider and prioritise.

In response to criticism about the lack of action, committee president Deputy Barry Brehaut tweeted: ‘The cliff has failed, it’s a huge engineering project. The profile of the cliff needs to be lowered to the 1990 level. The wall has to be realigned too, so two pieces of planning running parallel at the moment.’

The committee says its work in this area is impacted by historic issues around investment in infrastructure maintenance and repairs across the island which go back decades.

The wall at Fermain is one of many coastal areas that require maintenance. However, the work required there is much larger in scope than a standard wall repair due to its location at the bottom of a steep cliff face and the need for both the reprofiling of the cliff and repair of the wall.

Repairs that took place in the 1990s saw the cliff profile altered and the wall immediately to the south of the slipway was reduced in height and brought forward onto the beach.

Officers tendered for design assistance in 2019, but no bids were received.

The E&I team has worked subsequently with those who expressed an initial interest in the project to understand how the works can be re-tendered successfully.

Due to lockdown and other emerging priorities, which included the emergency works required on the Cobo sea wall, it is now hoped that the tender can be reissued later this year.