Critical repairs to historic sea wall in Portsmouth completed

By Fiona Callingham, Local Democracy Reporting Service

Critical repairs along a historic sea wall in Portsmouth will help protect the city from winter storms.

Work to secure part of the wall at 10 Gun Battery, next to the Square Tower in Old Portsmouth is now complete.

The structure became damaged in early 2020 following a series of successive storm events, including Storm Brendan and Storm Ciara.

Repairs were undertaken over four weeks as part of the Portsmouth City Council’s Southsea Coastal Scheme, in close consultation with Historic England.

Southsea Coastal Scheme engineer, Amy Brittan, said: ‘With the winter storm season ahead of us, we have worked quickly to get the section of seawall repaired.

‘Multiple stones that had been pushed into the wall by the force of the waves have been realigned, with any voids behind these stones being filled and any missing stones being replaced.

‘As always, when working with a structure that is classed as a scheduled ancient monument, all works were undertaken in consultation with Historic England.’

The Southsea Coastal Scheme is the UK’s largest local authority-led coastal defences project. So far the scheme has been awarded £100m by the government to proceed.

It will stretch for 4.5km from Old Portsmouth to Eastney, and help to reduce the risk of flooding to more than 10,000 homes and 700 businesses.

Recently the first major step in the defence work was taken when a dredging vessel brought up gravel to create a new platform on the shore by Long Curtain Moat.

It is expected the whole project will be completed by 2026.