Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Nearly There. Well Perhaps Not.

Having said on Monday that there had been nothing in the paper about Rock Walk recently this appeared today, Wednesday.

From the Herald Express

WORK to shore up Torquay's crumbling Rock Walk cliffs should be finished by the end of next week.
Experts who have spent months working on the cliff face will have substantially finished their contract by the end of the month.
Chris Flewitt, director of Vertical Technology Ltd, said they had not experienced any major problems during the £1million contract.
The company, which has also tendered for cliff work at Hollicombe Beach, Preston, Paignton, has netted and bolted the cliff, using 200 rolls of 50m square netting.
The netting is designed to last 120 years. Some 50 rock anchors have been inserted, between three and six metres long, to secure key blocks of rocks. Loose rock surface has been sprayed with concrete.
Mr Flewitt said greenery was already starting to grow back through the netting. "We have put a lot of effort into this, but probably by this time next year you won't be able to see it," he said.
They expect to come back in to carry out final checks on the works, probably over 10 days. Though Hampshire-based, they have other work in the area, including at Buckfastleigh.

Cllr Chris Lewis, who was on site to check progress, said work will be taking place creating new pathways this summer so the roadside barrier will remain in place.
The long-term plan is to create parking on the seaward side carriageway and re-open the cliff side of the road to two-way traffic.
"When it is finished it will look really attractive. It is already looking better than it did when you consider the overgrown and dangerous trees and the fact they found 500 hypodermic syringes in there in the first week," he said.
Cllr Lewis said they would keep the barriers up while the work is still going on, for example to protect equipment being used.
The next phase of restoration work will take place during the summer. All the work carried out will be limited to minimise noise, movement of heavy plant and equipment to avoid disruption to local business and amenities. It will also involve repair and maintenance of dry stone walls and railings. The top path will remain closed this summer.

The design will be for a Mediterranean-style planting scheme along the bottom path. Planting will start in early 2010, with most plants established by 2011.
Plants will be established mainly along borders with pocket planting, where possible on the cliff face.
Most of the plants on the cliff face will be left to regenerate naturally.

The netting will get hidden as the vegetation grows through it but what about the netting over bare rock, about 20% of the cliff face is rock? Also it is a shame that the top path is not going top be reopened, probably for an other two years and Councillor Lewis neglects to give even a hint of a completion date, that is when we can start walking along the walkways and admire the view and the plant life.

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Notes about the blog. Updated 08 March 2008

Not much is happening at Rock Work now. All the work clearing the trees has been done. A barrier has been erected to prevent rock falls from reaching the road. Now we wait for the geological survey in May to see what can be done to fix the rocks in place.
After that when work starts again later in the year I will post more photos.
Any news items I come across I will post as they appear in the local paper.

Or you can work through the whole blog to find more detail.

If you left click on a photo you get a larger image.

Each day has the label "Day", click on it and you will miss out the other posts.

Articles from the Herald Express are labelled Herald Express.

And so on.

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