Walkway near Weymouth Harbour walls to be moved 5 meters
A survey's found corrosion has got significantly worse
A walkway is being temporarily moved back 5 meters due to Weymouth's deteriorating harbour walls.
An inspection's been carried out at the far end of the peninsula.
It shows that the corrosion of the harbour walls there has got significantly worse.
Dorset Council say there's no risk of the wall collapsing, but they want to ensure the public's safety.
As an immediate safety measure, temporary fencing such as that used for construction work, will be put in place as soon as possible and the public walkway will be moved 5 metres back from the harbour wall edge, using the area previously occupied by around 35 car parking spaces.
Weymouth harbour master Jamie Joyce has also issued a notice to mariners in this area of the harbour: Mariners are advised there is a 10-metre exclusion zone along the length of the north east facing Peninsula car park wall (wall F). This area will be closed off to the public, including mooring alongside the wall, to set up an exclusion zone for remedial wall repairs and monitoring.
Dorset Council's Cabinet will decide over the coming weeks on the best course of action to address the corrosion of this harbour wall. They will decide whether to repair the wall to extend its life by several years or to bring forward the more substantial wall replacement works currently scheduled for 2025-26. Replacing harbour walls is a major engineering project, taking many months, even years.
Detailed surveys of all harbour walls are carried out by experts, and surveys were conducted in 2012 and 2019. In addition, Dorset Council annually monitors all harbour walls to identify any arising issues quickly. An additional 2021 survey has found this accelerated corrosion of the sheet pile walls around the tide mark on Wall F. Corrosion was also found on the adjacent Wall G, but to a lesser extent.
Cllr Mark Roberts, Chair of Dorset Council's Harbours Committee, said:
"Public safety is always our top priority. As soon as we learned of the extent of the corrosion to this area of the harbour walls from the recent survey, we agreed the best course of action is to move the public walkway in that area back by 5 metres while the longer term plan of action to address this is agreed. To be clear, there is no imminent risk of collapse of the walls but we are taking a prudent approach based on advice from technical experts.
"A huge programme of work is already underway to maintain and protect Weymouth harbour walls against erosion and future risk of flooding. Wall D works completed in 2020, and we are currently working on Wall C. As part of this programme of works, Wall F and Wall G - both of which are the most exposed to the sea - were due to be replaced in 2025-6. However, the survey findings indicate that we need to act more quickly and a decision will be made on next steps over the next few weeks."