Multi-million pound proposals for new sea defences at Felixstowe will extend the prom - but look set to leave a “missing link” in the coastal path.
FELIXSTOWE: Multi-million pound proposals for new sea defences at Felixstowe will extend the prom - but look set to leave a “missing link” in the coastal path.
The �8 million scheme - set to be approved by planners next week - should start in spring 2011 and will protect the area from the War Memorial to Jacob's Ladder.
It will go around Cobbold's Point at the bottom of Maybush Lane, where a stretch of new five-metre wide prom will be created.
However, despite pleas from conservation group The Felixstowe Society and residents, it looks unlikely to bridge the final “missing link” of walkway.
It will leave just a few yards between Jacob's Ladder and Brackenbury Cliffs with no prom out of the five miles from Felixstowe Ferry to Landguard.
Case officer Bob Chamberlain said timber groynes would be more appropriate along the seafront if the cost was less - one objector has called rock groynes “the cheap and nasty option”.
“Clearly limestone and granite four to six ton boulders are not something that you would, in the normal course of events, expect to see on the Felixstowe frontage and they are far from being 'natural' or 'soft',” said Mr Chamberlain.
“That said given the nature of the frontage and given the need for robust sea defence in order to protect the heritage asset that sits inland it is necessary to have an affordable and sustainable solution in the medium to long term.”
The plan is to demolish the current groynes, though not the reefs, and build rock groynes, between 35 and 65 metres long, spaced about 50 metres apart.
“Between each of these replacement rock groynes shingle/sand will be placed in the northern section of the frontage to bring the beach level to just below the level of the sea defence wall where required,” he said.
Would you like to see the prom go all the way from Felixstowe Ferry to Landguard? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk
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