The Atkins-designed Tywyn Coastal Defence Scheme for Gwynedd Council will be formally opened today by Jane Davidson AM, Welsh Assembly Government minister for environment, sustainability and housing.
The £7.6M scheme provides protection along the 1.8km coastal frontage of the North Wales town of Tywyn, where more than 70 properties had been at risk of flooding, particularly during stormy weather.
In recent years there have been a number of flooding incidents in the Tywyn area. The most recent was on the Bryn-y-Mor frontage where parts of the sea wall were undermined, causing the promenade slab to collapse in 2004 and again in 2007.
The beach has a history of levels of sand falling at a rate of about 1m over 50 years, which lead to an increase in wave heights and overtopping at the sea wall.
Rob Morgan, principal engineer at Atkins, said:
“Tywyn is in Cardigan Bay on the Welsh coast, which experiences a lot of turbulent weather and storms and associated flooding. Over the past 15 years, Gwynedd Council has considered a number of flood protection options and have sought suitable funding and looked for a scheme that was in-keeping with the character of the town’s Victorian promenade, which was constructed in the 1890s. Atkins designed this scheme to be sensitive to its character and heritage and to not cause any secondary impacts further along the coastline.”
The design involved the construction of a new large rock breakwater located above low tide level - designed to break waves and mitigate overtopping at the sea wall - rock groynes and a rock revetment to protect the town. The scheme, which was carried out by contractor Jones Bros Ltd., also included replacement of the timber groynes, a new concrete stepped revetment to the base of the Victorian promenade, sea wall repairs and other associated improvements.
Some 51,000 tonnes of rock was used for the defences sourced locally from nearby Penmaenmawr and Minffordd as well as from St. Malo, Brittany. Approximately 15,000 tonnes of beach nourishment behind the breakwater makes up for the reduction of beach levels in this local area and mitigates for material drawn into ‘the salient’ of the breakwater, while 3,000sq m of concrete was used for the revetments.
The scheme, which began in 2009 and has been popular with the local community it now protects from the outset, was funded by the Welsh Assembly Government (£4.1m) and the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Funding (£3.5m).
Recent projects by Atkins, the UK’s largest engineering and design consultancy, include critical programme management of storm protection works in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana, USA, where Atkins provided expertise in coastal restoration, engineering, environmental and GIS support to rebuild defences and protect habitats.
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