Sterling work from the Pevensey Coastal Defence team continues to keep the Bay on the international stage as a pioneering platform in the management of issues related to beach maintenance and coastal erosion.
The scheme was the first sea defence project anywhere in the world to be funded as a Public Private Partnership (PPP/PFI). To coincide with the project’s 10th anniversary, in September 2010, New Civil Engineer magazine published a 4-page article about the company.
Having a gold standard organisation working closely with the coastal environment and local residents to promote best practice in beach maintenance makes Pevensey Bay a magnet for specialist briefings, magazine articles and research right across the world.
The commemorative New Civil Engineer Magazine article, for example, points to the fact that innovation has not just been limited to the use of plant on the job. The team has also trialled lesser known hardwoods for new groynes and experimented with components made of recyclable materials.
In a key paragraph, the article sums up the work with the words;
‘the 25 year contract gives the entire sea defence industry a real chance to learn how this beach works…..’
With the eyes of the technical world on details about how this project is managed and implemented, the importance of the scheme, not just to the lives of people within the local community, but to hundreds of other local communities close to the sea in comparable circumstances cannot be underestimated.
Bay Life is always happy to be able to bring latest news of all the endeavours of the Pevensey Bay Coastal Defence team.
Recently, they reported that Sospan Dau started work replenishing Pevensey Bay’s sea defences today by delivering her first cargo of the year to Sovereign Harbour.
This season’s campaign will be much more disjointed than usual as the dredger has to be in South Wales by 24th July and then in dry dock in Holland on 11th August. Hopefully all Pevensey’s work can be completed before or between these two dates. Recharge at Bulverhythe for the Environment Agency will be delayed until September and a refit in Rotterdam.
Sovereign Harbour residents will hopefully be pleased to hear that there will be no machines used on the beach for material recovery, the material being allowed to be spread by subsequent wave action.
website: Pevensey Bay Coastal Defence Limited
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