The trustees have now presented their detailed plans to Cornwall Council and the Environment Agency for the installation of rock armour to protect the North Pier. These plans have been well received and the designs have been incorporated into tender documents that have just been issued to a number of contractors. We have been assisted with this work by the engineering and technical services company called Binnies.
The Trustees invite expressions of interest from contracting organisations with previous experience of Marine Civil Engineering Construction. Please contact Stephen Byrne of Binnies ([email protected]) for further information and the ability to tender for the work.
Assuming funding for the work is forthcoming, we expect to appoint a firm to undertake this work in November 2024 with the work being completed by 31 March 2025.
The Mevagissey Harbour Resilience Project has come about as a result of the poor condition of the North Pier and the potential impacts from climate change.
The last condition report on the piers was undertaken in 2012 by Royal Haskoning and this described that some elements of the North Pier were in Poor Condition with a residual life of 5 – 10 years, before the structure starts to fail.
Royal Haskoning also stated that over the course of the next century accelerated sea level rise will increase wave loading on many coastal structures. This will tend to accelerate structure degradation, and lead to instability/collapse in some cases, unless measures are undertaken to prevent this. It also means that new structures will generally have to be larger than those they replace.
The Trustees have undertaken a considerable amount of work on climate change and the impacts it will have on Mevagissey with Marine-i and Plymouth University. This work and the reports produced are contained in the climate change section of our website.
We have been working with our technical services partner, Binnies, to design the protections required and with the Environment Agency and Cornwall Council to agree the scope of works and to request grant funding for it to be carried out.
Assuming MHT can secure the funding and is able to secure the services of a firm experienced in Marine Civil Engineering construction, the project to place an estimated 15,000 tonnes of rock armour on the seaward facing side of the Noth Pier can go ahead. We hope to appoint a firm to undertake the work in November with the work being completed by 31 March 2025.
