Tendring District Council have commissioned Mott McDonald to renew groynes and sea wall at Holland and Clacton. Mott have recently completed something similar at Felixstowe.
Flexistowe beach looking south towards pier and Tendring
Flexistowe looking north
looking north towards the sea wall
The beach is mainly sand expect by the wall where there are some stones.
You can probably make out from the photo that the sand/stone by sea wall is dry, so it protects the wall from the sea. Also the level of the sand goes almost to the top of the groynes. In other words the groynes have filled up with sand and a bit of shingle.
How big are the stones?
Here is a picture of a stone I picked up which I judged to be a typical size. I have put it on top of a ruler and a circle with a 60mm diameter. So the stone is smaller than 60mm but not much.
But remember almost all of the beach was sand.
What’s so special about 60mm?
Well at the recent Clacton and Holland Beach Hut Association meeting my recollection is that Peter Halliday, conservative leader of Tendring District Council, said the beach at Holland would be regenerated with sand.
There was some fuss when it turned out this wasn’t exactly what was meant. Joy Broderick was quoted in Gazette
….the Leader of TDC, Cllr Halliday has once again slammed the Holland Residents’
Association for wanting to provide the best for our residents. In a “U” turn
Cllr Halliday has admitted that the report confirms tea cup sized stones for
our beaches but that he would be happy for even larger sized rocks to be
included. At the recent consultation in Holland we were shown perfectly
acceptable course grain sand so this change of mind gave us no option but to
challenge the decision. At a scrutiny meeting on 4th June, Cllrs Winfield,
Oxley and Shearing managed to get an admission that Holland beaches will be
replenished with 20 to 60mm shingle and large rock boulders. Unfortunately,
Cllr Halliday, through reports in the press has stated that Holland
Councillors are trying to scupper this so called “once in a lifetime”
opportunity. This could not be further from the truth – we are asking for
what is best for Holland and our residents and their families – a return
to sandy beaches where children can safely play. I would like to point out
that I and the Residents’ Association Vice-Chairman both live on the sea
front, our newsletter editor and Secretary live within yards of the sea
front and a number of our committee have beach huts so for it to be
suggested that we are trying scupper the plan is completely mistaken. I
note that it has been said that the Environment Agency will refuse funding
if they get any more challenges but, according to the Chair of the
Environment Agency, there is not yet any agreed funding! I would also take
this opportunity to express the view that the protection of sea defences
should surely be dealt with by our representative in Westminster, our MEP
and Essex County Council who take the lions share of our taxes. It shouldn’t
be left to the local district council to take the flack for the government’s
Shoreline Management Plan.
Joy expanded on this in an email
The size of stones is mentioned in last months cabinet report. It was at
this cabinet meeting that they had on display a bucket of sand (no stones)
I just noticed that in the report it stated that it would be a mixture of
20mmto 60mm stones. At the call in they quoted some percentage that they
would work to but how will we ever know the ratio once it’s on the beach.
Halliday caught out in a lie said that he would be very happy to have any
size stones including rock boulders as it would be better than the mud we
have now.
He also said we should be grateful for any money from the rest of the
country’s tax payers. No mention was made by anyone about the millions
Tendring people are paying to other coastal towns not to mention the in land
flooding we’ve paid for.
So it looks like the plan is for the beach to not be all sand, there may even be no sand just boulders. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see as there will be no more public input all the decisions will be taken by “The Project Team”, who ever they are.
A once in a life time opportunity?
Why do people keep saying that? It makes no sense to me other, than it takes so long to get anything done will all be dead before it happens.
And on a serious note this is literally true for some beach hut owners. One weekend last summer I walked along the sea front talking to almost all of people who were in beach huts. It made me sad when some said something like
I’m over ninety, by the time its finished I’ll be long gone.
It makes me angry that no one seems to care.
This situation has been going on since 2001 when DEFRA was created. DEFRA fund EA, EA funds repairs to sea wall and groynes. So far DEFRA/EA have consistently refused to pay of renewing the groynes and sea wall, though they have been willing to stump up about £10million for emergency repairs to sea wall, which work out to have cost about £10,000/metre!
