Thursday, 18 May 2023

eight2o New River Stabilisation Project - Update #5

The project team invited residents to a meeting on Wednesday 3rd October at the Riverside Community Church on Russel Street where they presented an update on the project, held a Q&A session and talked through the reinstatement works to the embankment. As well as returning the embankment to its former glory before the slips and cracks appeared the project team want to give something back to the community that will enhance this section of the river for years to come. The proposal is to provide a toe-path that will be sympathetically constructed to the surroundings but provide safe access along this stretch of the river. The project team produced and presented a visual representation of the route of the footpath and what it would look like which you can see below.

Progress to Date:

Since our last project update the site team have been working flat out and have made great progress. They have been averaging a pile install rate of 30 per day which equates to 10 meters per day in distance (on both sides of the river). They are now almost at the half way mark with around another 150 meters of piling to go before they reach the Wood Green tunnel. Unfortunately, time is not on our side and the team only have another 13 working days left before they must start bringing their plant and equipment back up the river out of the 70-meter exclusion zone. This is to ensure the site team adhere with Natural England legalisation around disturbance of bats during the roosting/hibernation season which starts on the 1 st November. A quick bit of maths shows that on current performance we are going to be about 20 meters short of Wood Green tunnel, which is agonisingly close, but without an extension of time will mean we won’t finish the piling works and will have to return in Spring next year to complete the works at this end of the site!

Look-ahead During w/c 8th October we will continue to remove the old sheet pile system from the embankment and install new piles.

Many thanksThe eight2o New River Delivery Team

View from Whittington Road end showing east and west bank pile line

approx. 120m long.

View from west bank showing pieces of old bridge abutment that have been

removed to allow piling.

Photo from Myddleton Road end pre-land slip

Proposed route of new footpath View along New River showing proposed footpath

View from Whittington Road showing tug boat and pontoon delivering piles to

crane platform.