Work starts on Old Colwyn prom

Jun 3 2010 by Richard Evans, North Wales Weekly News

WORK has begun to strengthen Old Colwyn’s promenade after a radar survey revealed soft spots and water filled voids below the surface.

Severe storms in March devastated the area of coast raising fears the promenade road and cyclepath could collapse and led the council to conduct an engineers’ report.

The report has now finished and concluded there are soft spots and large pools of water below the concrete.

Initial findings also revealed 160m of the sea wall has been damaged while the beach and sand levels, which offer added protection, have also been decimated.

Initial work to repair has now begun and the council hopes the Assembly will foot part of the £600,000 bill. In the meantime, the prom road has been re-opened to traffic.

Environmental manager Dyfed Rowlands explained Conwy County Council was now to carry out repair work.

“The radar survey identified a number of areas of concern within the promenade, which we suspected to be a combination of soft spots caused by a loss of material during the storm and other areas of potentially large water-filled voids near the toe of the existing sea wall,” he said.

“Defects like this are potentially very serious, so we decided to do a series of exploratory trial holes over the suspected soft areas and voids.

The majority of these investigatory holes confirmed that several large soft spots were present, which were most likely caused by the storm washing away material. The defects were backfilled by the contractor immediately.

“One trial hole did however identify a problem with the integrity of an 11m section of the sea wall. This section of wall was and remains undermined, with the incoming tide freely able to pass under the foundation and remove material from within the promenade.

“To rectify this serious defect, work will be needed to underpin the foundation of the wall with additional concrete. It is expected that this work will take approximately two weeks.”

In addition to the investigation within the promenade, emergency work is also now underway to construct a rock revetment immediately adjacent to the damaged wall. When completed, the rock wall will help prevent further material from passing under the wall and will protect the wall during future storms. This work is expected to take about six weeks.

richard.evans