Following the demolition of Blue Waters (in the previous post), I took photos of the next stage of regeneration as it took place. A huge area, to include housing and a supermarket, it was situated upon a flood plain, which necessitated building up the foundation height to above sea level.
As this involved bringing in a vast
amount of material, it was shipped in by sea rather than transported
by road with all its inherent problems. A huge pipeline was laid from
the site, across the edge of the harbour and into the sea from the
beach. Accessed by ship out in the bay, the material was
pumped through the pipe to the site.
The photo below shows the pipe above Harbour Road. The initial material of coarse grit was brought in from the Isle of Wight. Apparently, the noise was a cause for complaint by nearby residents, especially as operations were often carried out during the night. However, as the photo above shows, lagging was added to mitigate the problem and a short while later the material only consisted of sand and finer grit from Wales.
The pipe continued from the old Racal Electronics site (below) across to the construction site...
...where it was unloaded ready for distribution by the giant earthmovers.
Rant? Well, maybe a bit of one. If you're going to regenerate a seaside town to entice tourists and give the town a boost, would you demolish a thriving holiday village which had been showcased on TV holiday programmes as a fab place to stay, and replace it with a Tesco supermarket and a few houses? What on earth were they thinking!
Anyway, I was pleased that I thought to document it for posterity, and watching the process was very interesting too.
The built up area was eventually contained beneath tarpaulins in the massive oblong shape seen below.
The chap working close to where I took the photos kept looking suspiciously at me and another bloke with a clipboard strolled up to see what I was doing. It's that camera thing again! Some people can't help but think you're up to no good if you have what looks like a professional camera. ;)
And that's about it. Coming up next - at last! - I've just about finished the Coastal Erosion article, as promised earlier on in the year. Actually, I've split it into two articles. They just need tidying up then I'll get them posted. I hope I haven't jinxed it by promising again, mind! :)
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