Balfour Beatty has reached another milestone in its transformation of Rossall’s sea defences in Lancashire – the construction group recently commenced works to create an ecology park on the landward side of the sea defence scheme.

The transformation of the 1.5km strip of land, already classed as a Biological Heritage site, was awarded to Balfour Beatty following the company’s partnership with Wyre Council to construct Rossall’s sea defence. The first four year phase of the scheme saw Balfour Beatty build a new seawall using 280,000 tonnes of rock and 2,762 precast concrete units.

The first phase of landscaping for new ecology park will focus on earthworks to raise the level of the ground with turfing, seeding and re-planting of rarer plant species following shortly after.

Mark Farrah, Balfour Beatty’s North & Midlands Regional Business Director, said: “This work marks the beginning of the end of construction for the Rossall sea defences. Once complete, together with the Anchorsholme coastal project, it will be the largest coastal protection scheme in the UK helping to protect 12,500 residents from the risk of flooding across a coastline that spans over 2.9 kilometres.” 

The Rossall and Anchorsholme sea defence scheme is due for completion this winter, with the additional landscaping works at Rossall set for completion in summer 2018.