The Environment Agency's 7.2 kilometre long Adur tidal walls flood defence scheme in Shoreham-by-Sea is reaching the final stages of construction with completion expected by the end of the year.
A major component to making good progress has been the use of the Giken press piling train to drive in the steel piles. This is a Giken silent piling unit, power pack, and crane mounted onto the piles (a ‘reaction stand’), using the installed piles as tracks – like a train.
The Giken piler drives piles silently by pressing them into the ground. This is located at the front of the ‘train’ pressing piles in at the front. The whole train walks along, following the Giken silent piler to install piles in a linear fashion.
The equipment has proved to be key to working in the tight spaces between the Shoreham houseboats and the houses landside of the path, driving in the steel piles to form the wall’s core support.
The planning process needed to be carefully managed to ensure that stakeholder agreements were completed on time because of the specialist Giken press piling train required to install the sheet piles. This needed to be booked 6 months in advance as there are only a few in the world.
Scheme contract partners Team Van Oord developed a stakeholder engagement programme to set out the process to obtain the agreements and the roles of project team organisations at each stage.
Team Van Oord have had to install some 1,176 sheet piles – each one 11 metres long - in the W5 reach, one of the 10 sections that make up the 7.2 kilometre long defence,
Following completion of sheet piling the W5 reach is scheduled for reopening this autumn.
The Shoreham Adur tidal walls scheme includes:
- 7.2km raised walls
- 3km of flood embankment
- 1km of concrete walls
- ½km of flood glass
Once complete, the scheme which has been constructed by the Environment Agency working with Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), Adur District Council and West Sussex County Council, will reduce the tidal flood risk to thousands of homes and commercial properties in the area, as well as protecting important local infrastructure such as roads, railway lines and Shoreham Airport.
The £32 million project is partnership funded, with a £23.8 million contribution from government attracting partnership contributions from West Sussex County Council, Coast to Capital LEP, and some private developers through Adur District Council.
Construction work on the defence started in October 2016 - more than two-thirds of the flood defence scheme has now been completed full completion expected by the end of the year.
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