L'Ancresse wall repair cost ‘would be less than £3.5m.’

The figure falls a long way short of that predicted by Environment & Infrastructure, which had said that in a worst case scenario taxpayers could end up having to pay £11m. E&I wanted to demolish 130 metres of the eastern wall and turn the area into sand dunes. But the wall won a reprieve after Deputy Al Brouard successfully motioned to set aside £200,000 for maintenance over a decade. The new repair estimates were included in a fresh report prepared for the Vale Commons Council by WRD (White Royal Dixon) Engineers, which includes a number of redacted figures in relation to the costs of specific elements. But the total costs suggested by contractor NSP Foundations Ltd would be less than £3.5m. There would usually be a contingency sum of 10% on top of this, plus the costs of the report’s author, consultant chartered and civil structural engineer Chris Shaw, who visited the site.

Mr Shaw viewed the wall many times, but was unable to come this year due to the pandemic. His report states that the wall’s problems stem from a lack of maintenance and an absence of drainage weep holes.

‘The front of the concrete apron has been undermined by the action of the sea over the years, causing the concrete to break up and fall away from the front of the wall,’ he wrote.

‘As such, the problem is essentially a concrete one, and the proposals in this report address this.’ He also noted that at the western Pembroke wall, steel sheet piling was installed, protecting the apron.

His proposals are that remedial work be carried out to the rock armour in front of the eastern end of the wall, although rock armour put in place as a ‘temporary’ measure in early 2018 was still there.

Mr Shaw recommended extending the rock armour the full length of the concrete toe in front of the wall – a length of about 180 metres – from the slipway to the gap in the wall by the steps: ‘The rock armour should be placed in front of the sheet steel piling and over and on top of the concrete apron,’ said Mr Shaw.

He proposes that sheet steel piling be installed on the sand in front of the wall, about 4-4.5m from its front. This would extend as far as the gap by the steps. A capping beam of reinforced concrete would be incorporated into the concrete apron, comprising layers of stainless steel bars. Weep holes would be created to allow drainage behind the wall and a surface water drain put in. Finally, sections of the wall that have moved would need to be restored, but a more detailed assessment and calculations would need to be done to assess whether this was practical. The affected areas comprise five panels totalling 61.5m and these end at the gap in the wall by the steps.

‘Initial information suggests that it may be unlikely that a detailed assessment would show that restoring the panels to their original positions would be viable,’ Mr Shaw said.

If this work did go ahead, he estimated that it might cost between £40,000 and £80,000.