Lyme Regis case study: The engineers approach
Other pages Lyme Regis homepage Preliminary Studies Summary of Problems Immediate Action Outline Solutions		West Dorset District Council, as the local coast protection authority, maintain the town's sea walls and implement new coast protection schemes and slope stabilisation works, with the objective of helping to safeguard the integrity of the urban coastal areas of Lyme Regis in the long term. In the past, landslide and coast protection works were usually carried out in response to a disaster, such as a sea wall breach or property lost to landsliding. This was the equivalent of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. Nowadays, the aim is to control instability by taking a pro-active, preventative approach, rather than reacting to events after they have caused the damage. To this end, one of the first objectives the Council had to meet in tackling the coast protection problems was to gain an understanding of exactly what the problems are. For example, most people in Lyme Regis know that the ground moves and that properties are damaged or destroyed from time to time. However, until recently the exact mechanisms of the instability, such as the depths to which it was occurring and the speeds at which the ground moved, were unknown. This was the purpose of carrying out an extensive series of preliminary studies - to gain an understanding of problems and to obtain information for use in the design of stabilisation works. The coast protection challenges are being approached in a large-scale holistic manner, by considering the whole to the Lyme Regis coastline as part of the study, rather than just isolated problem areas, and by taking a broad view of the entire coastal system from the cliff top to the sea bed about a kilometre offshore, including its long-term historical evolution. In addition to technical investigations, issues such as the economic benefits of implementing schemes and the potential environmental benefits and disadvantages also needed to be examined as part of the studies. Much of the funding for coast protection schemes comes from Central Government grants. It is a condition of the grants that the technical, economic and environmental issues are fully considered to demonstrate that the engineering schemes would provide value for money and would be concordant with the sensitive natural and built environments at Lyme Regis. The development of schemes is carried out in collaboration with local residents and organisations. Discussions are held through the Lyme Regis Coastal Forum, which meets every six weeks or so. Many of the boreholes are measured regularly as their deformation provides a unique window into the movement taking place beep below the ground
Over ninety boreholes were drilled across the town in 1997 to gain an understanding of the geology and structural stability of the land Excavations expose one of the numerous shear surfaces over which the landslides move (the shiny surface in the bottom photo)
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