£3.5m seafront cliffs repair work to start (From Echo)
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£3.5m seafront cliffs repair work to start
3:00pm Friday 17th August 2012 in Local News
By Stephen Hackwell
An artist’s impression – how the new cliff walkway will look once the work in completed next year
RUMBLING trucks, road closures and restricted parking will hit Southend’s seafront this autumn as £3.5million cliff slip repairs get under way.
Southend Council will be forced to shut one carriageway of Western Esplanade and direct lorries full of earth past homes in Clifftown Parade during a hectic three-month operation.
The plans are part of proposals to pave the way for a new £40million museum on the seafront, as well as restoring the cliff gardens which have been off limits to the public since 2002.
But residents and tourists will have to put up with an autumn of disruption before they can start to enjoy the freshly-landscaped area.
Derek Jarvis , the Tory councillor responsible for the project, said: “What we want to do is open the gardens for the public as soon as possible.
“This is part of a long-term project for the area, on which we are working very hard.”
The council secured planning permission to stabilise the cliffs, and eventually sink the 20,000sq ft museum complex into them, at a crunch meeting last month. The process will involve placing steel supports into the crumbling soil to stop a repeat of the 2002 landslide, which blocked Western Esplanade.
But several so-called “muck trucks” will also be needed to move the unwanted earth to a temporary storage area, where it will be kept until tentative plans to build new flood defence across Shoebury Common have been finalised.
For the first seven weeks after work starts next month, the vehicles will use a route running eastwards along quiet Clifftown Parade and then away along Devereux Road.
From the start of October, the trucks will begin in Clifftown Parade, head down through the gardens and then along Western Esplanade.
The second route will mean the closure of the eastbound carriageway of Western Esplanade for three weeks, avoiding the schools holidays which start on October 29.
An extra lane will be squeezed into the westbound carriageway to allow traffic to continue to travel in both directions.
The closure will also result in the temporary loss of 19 parking spaces in Western Esplanade.
However, Mr Jarvis said the measures were necessary to protect the public.
Comments are closed on this article.
Comments (40)
3:15pm Fri 17 Aug 12
anon anon says...
im sure people will complain....
thats what they do...
3:19pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Broadwaywatch says...
Leaving the cliffs in the state they have been for so long has been a dis-service to the people of this town. They should have and could have been fixed years ago.
3:44pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
3:48pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
Well people we do not have Star Trek transporters yet so can’t just beam the fix in to place get over it.
3:49pm Fri 17 Aug 12
anon anon says...
4:27pm Fri 17 Aug 12
firedog says...
or it will be a waste of money.
5:08pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Richy don't shine shoes no more says...
According to the map, you enter a complex series of caves and tunnels through a disused well behind the Victoria Memorial. If the map and legend are to be believed, these lead you to an opening at the foot of the stream known to be the final resting place of the Essex pirate One Eyed Dave and his treasure trove of Razzle magazines, shell suits, Cortina badges and the last known case of Babycham stolen from the basement of Tots.
5:37pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Saxonpride says...
So let's here it, let's hear all about how bad it is that the cliffs are getting repaired. I don't know, maybe you can say that it's 'ruining the aesthetic of the town', I know how much you love to use that old chestnut.
Or how about making references to cockles and deck chairs, just to show us how horribly out of touch you all are? Please, let's just get it over with. I've already resigned myself to you cretins trying to ruin absolutely EVERYTHING positive in Southend, so let's hear all about how unhappy you are.
5:42pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Eric Whim says...
Was a team of consultants consulted regarding the picture?
5:48pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
So are you saying the council should employ somebody full time to do the artist impressions of any council project.
So when nothing is planned do they get kept on and paid for sitting at home doing nothing or do they get sacked and re-hired each time they are needed.
5:51pm Fri 17 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
8:11pm Fri 17 Aug 12
southend brummie says...
8:15pm Fri 17 Aug 12
bignosechaff says...
8:23pm Fri 17 Aug 12
bignosechaff says...
9:05pm Fri 17 Aug 12
bigidiot says...
This leads me to one question - Where is this "temporary storage area" going to be located ???
9:14pm Fri 17 Aug 12
'V' says...
9:45pm Fri 17 Aug 12
SARFENDMAN says...
10:56pm Fri 17 Aug 12
jantone says...
It may well cause disruption for a few months, but what difference, at least Southend will have a seafront we can all enjoy & be proud of!!
Come on Moaners, let's be having you !!
9:05am Sat 18 Aug 12
Chymes81 says...
9:23am Sat 18 Aug 12
leigh-my-town says...
5:45pm Sat 18 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
If the council had asked for the funding for the cliffs it would have been refused as Pier Hill was regeneration and the Cliff Gardens would have been restoration.
Why people are stating as "fact" the museum will open the floodgates to more building proves they are scaremingering as the land is owned by the council any planning application refused and appealed will still have to get permission from the land owner even if the Home Sec passes the plans the council hold all the card as the land owner.
It will not be the start of major building program.
8:29am Sun 19 Aug 12
'V' says...
12:24pm Sun 19 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
Look back over the countless posts and you will see I am a diver who welds under water why would the council need somebody with my skills?
I pointed out facts, facts that anyone could have checked on themselfs.
10:02pm Sun 19 Aug 12
jayman says...
12 meter heavy duty RSJ £150 x 20 £3000
pile driver hire + operator £1000 per day x 10 days for piling in the steels £10,000.
cross sections and other steal work £8000
labourers wage x10 @ £9.60 per hour working 8 hours per day
9.60 x 8 x 5 x 10 = £3,840 per week
engineers x 3 project manager x1
engineers @ 15.80 per hour
15.80 x 8 x 5 x 3 = £1896
project manager @ 21.00 per hour
21 x 8 x 5 = £840 per week...
i think you know where i'm going with this...
why 3.5 million to re-enforce the cliffs and an additional 2.5 million to dump the spoil as (flood defences) off shoebury. that's a six million pound package. the contractor must be very happy, or laughing.. laughing all the way to the bank.
10:34pm Sun 19 Aug 12
'V' says...
The only conclusion I can make is you either work for the council or you are a councillor.
I mean no disrespect.
11:13pm Sun 19 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
I have told people time and again that I am a Hyperbaric Welder and the Lead Marine Design Engineer for the compnay I work for (with anyluck not for much longer) ;)
Why would the council employ somebody that can weld the bottom of a boat or a gas/oil rig whilst it is still at sea.
There was a guy on here who went by the name of "V in the Vicinity" every posting I made he asked that same question as you did so seing your name "V" and the same question...
11:18pm Sun 19 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
If so why did you not put a bid in for the work?
Did you put together a complete H&S risk assessment (Boo Hiss)
Did you take GPS readings of where all the positioning of all the piles will need to be?
Did you check on the exacting strength of the piles needed, the lengths, the type of walls to be built?
Did you work out what size crew you will need?
What facilitys will the workmen need?
You really are a bellend.
12:24am Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
high grade carbon iron alloy or (steel) one inch thick has 2836 lbs per cubic inch strength.
get two blokes with one theodolite to calculate the mass of soil that requires underpinning.
adjust the thickness / spacing of RSJ's accordingly.
H&S risk assessment!.. people who work in risk or H&S act as if they are a dark art.. you could have one banged out in a day.
facilities? portaloo and a site office.. if the council use there facilities to store equipment they (us the tax payers) will make a saving.
always good to see the true arrogance of Tory back bencher's. a group of the slime bags where saying that British workers are lazy..
NO.
British councils are wasteful and our management is pathetic. a mere shadow of what it used to be during a time when we used to actually make stuff in this country..
12:36am Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
guess how many apprentices could work on site and gain skills.. As many as possible.
and would this be an accountable and responsible way of spending money from the public purse..
YES..
12:24pm Mon 20 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
You would moan about somebody being paid for just sitting at their desk.
Also I beleve work such as those under taken so far must by law be sent out to tender so an inhouse manager would not legally be able to pick a company out of yellow pages to under take the work proposed.
1:17pm Mon 20 Aug 12
Anti Southend Nimbys says...
The worth of trees removed from the Cliff Slip acording to a member of the save our cliffs group...
Were they gold plated with diamond leafs?
How did they get to this numner... Well they used Goverment figures and an estimation of the munber of trees removed... really very acurate then.
Our Blog is now live come and say hello.
http://antisouthendn
imbys.weebly.com/
7:38pm Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
7:43pm Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
had the council had any clue, or a pro on hand to give them a clue, they would have soon realised that the mechanism was a complicated absurdity and could have never functioned, as the design was utter Bo11ocks.
i could go on listing the number of failures the council have embarked upon within the realm of capital spending but the echo's servers would be overloaded by the sheer volume of information contained within the post.
7:46pm Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
7:56pm Mon 20 Aug 12
jayman says...
source the equipment, materials and temp manpower.
then makes a massive saving. we all make a saving..
nothing in the law that says councils cant undertake work themselves. its just councillors tend to work on the principle of nods and favours..
12:00am Tue 21 Aug 12
Anti Southend Nimbys says...
For you have been indoctrinated by the cognitive strategies of the darkling’s who foretell of doom and grave dangers, those that seed the scaremongering thoughts that are not of truth but are of factious misguidance.
You need to learn that your mind is clouded and that there is another path one that will lead you into the light one that shall free the shackles that hold you down one that will let your mind become a place of enlightened thought.
You know not of us but one thing we are not blue, we are not red, yellow, green or of no discernible colour, your tarring of us in to one corner is the action of a fool.
3:09pm Tue 21 Aug 12
j-w says...
you should go through your website with a spell checker. I know that it means nothing in the world but doesn't look good if you are trying to be taken seriously (even in a tongue in cheek fashion)
6:47pm Tue 21 Aug 12
Max Impact says...
Guess there will be some unhappy people looking at it, wonder if there will be any legal action in the offing about its content.
7:27pm Tue 21 Aug 12
Nebs says...
WARNING Do not remove any earth as you may disturb the copper cables 18 inches below the surface.
12:44pm Thu 23 Aug 12
jonkay1 says...