Eastoke Beach Nourishment Works Summer 2009

Where will the project take place?

The site for the nourishment is the southern Eastoke frontage at Hayling Island. This area of ongoing erosion requires periodic maintenance. The nourishment operations help to restore beach levels along the front, in order to provide protection to the residents of Eastoke.

In 1992 a Beach Management Plan was introduced, enabling the sustainable management of the Eastoke frontage. Further developments led to the Eastoke

Sectoral Strategy Study, which sets out the Beach Management plan in detail for defending the Eastoke Peninsula.

The Beach Management plan involves:

· Beach Nourishment

· Beach Recycling

· Coastal Monitoring

Beach Management objective is to provide a 1 in 200 year standard of protection along the frontage against coastal erosion and flooding, and extend the life of the original 1985 Beach replenishment Scheme.

Why is it needed?

The Eastoke peninsula is a densely populated area. The majority of it is low-lying with a record of serious flood incidents prior to 1985, as shown in the photos. Since the 1930's hard defences were constructed to fix the line of this frontage, but regular overtopping and flooding was experienced. In 1985 the beach nourishment scheme was implemented, creating a man made beach in front of the now redundant sea wall. Coastal processes are constantly eroding this frontage and without intervention the redundant concrete seawall would again be exposed. The result of this would be a return to regular serious flooding of Eastoke, through continuing erosion of the coastline. Images of these occurrences at Eastoke can be seen on our 'Coastal Defence' page.

Where is the material coming from?

Area 351 and Area 451

Material for this phase of Beach Nourishment will be obtained from a licensed offshore dredge site. There are a number of potential licensed sites around the Isle of Wight and the extraction site is likely to be Area 351 or 451 on the east side of the Isle of Wight.

The Council have appointed Westminster Dredging Ltd who will undertake the works using the dredging vessel "Sospan Dau". This vessel was previously used for similar works at Eastoke in 2008, 2002 and 1997. The vessel is a trailing suction hopper dredger, approximately 70 metres long and capable of holding 900 cubic metres of sand and gravel. The dredger has a shallow draft and a jet pump ashore facility, which enables the vessel to come very close inshore and "rainbow" the material directly into its preferred location.

For a live location of the dredging vessel click here (external link) >>

How will we undertake the operation?

The works will involve the following activities:

Dredging shingle for nourishment from a licensed offshore dredge site.
Temporary closure of small areas of Eastoke Beach to receive nourishment material.
Pumping ashore of the shingle from the dredger by Rainbowing as in previous operations. The dredger has a very shallow draft allowing the vessel to come very close in shore and a jet pump is used to pump the material onto the shore.
Where necessary material will be moved to its required profile using land based machinery.

“A spectacular sight”

This will be a 24 hour operation due to the tidal nature of the works. The project may cause some noise disturbance, however we will endeavour to keep the level of inconvenience to a minimum. We request your co-operation for the duration of the works as the project aims to reduce the risk of continuing erosion of the coastline and serious flooding of the Eastoke area.

Will I still be able to use the beach?

In the interests of health and safety it is intended that approximately 300m sections of the frontage will be cordoned off at any one time in order to allow the pump ashore to take place and material moved by land based construction machinery. Small areas of the promenade will be closed whilst pumping is underway. There will be clear signage at all access points to the beach and a Beach Master will also be on site during all discharges.

What will the beach look like?

Initially material may look darker than the beach at present and some “cliffing” of the newly deposited material is anticipated as the material sorts itself through natural processes. However the beach will return to its natural profile in time.

Environmental Impact Assessment

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been completed for the works. This is important as the site is within and adjacent to European, national and locally designated protected sites. To view the Environmental Statement (The outcome of the EIA), and the Study to Inform Appropriate Assessment of the project, please follow the links below (Acrobat Reader required):

Environmental Statement (PDF 1018Kb) >>

Study to Inform Appropriate Assessment (PDF 224Kb) >>

This includes a number of figures, each of which is listed below:

There are a number of other licences and consents that have also been obtained for the works, to enable us to extract and deposit the material.

Further information and contact details

If you have any further questions or queries that we can help with, please contact the coastal team at:

Eastern Solent Coastal Partnership

Public Service Plaza

Havant

PO9 2AX

Tel: 023 9247 4174

Havant Borough Council, Civic Centre Road, Havant, Hampshire PO9 2AX