Friday 10th November

Referring to the placement of stent material on the beach, which forms part of the plans for the proposed sea wall, ecological consultant Mr Andrew Baker said this would cause “some limited disturbance in the near shore area but this will be short-term and the sands will rapidly re-colonise”.

He was referring to 184,000 cubic metres of stent material which would enable the beach to be extended by 16 metres in some places.

Mr Baker, partner with Baker Shepherd Gillespie, said there were few differences between the extant sea defence scheme and the proposed scheme with extensive biological surveys showing that the ecological impacts were not significant.

The team which carried out the surveys included himself and two well respected marine biologists – Dr Lin Baldock and Sarah Welton.

He said the assumption that the offshore impact would be minimal was agreed with Roger Covey from Natural England – previously English Nature.

“Our tests confirmed that the near beach area where the stent would be placed showed highly mobile sand supporting typically poor fauna,” he said.

“Further comprehensive marine surveys of Carlyon Bay have been carried out in July 2006 and confirmed that the near beach area (within 100 metres of the shore) is predominately bare sand.

“Sparse eelgrass and maerl beds were found within the bay but these will not be affected by the stent material because they are too far away,” he said.

Mr Baker pointed out that a photograph submitted by Carlyon Bay Watch as part of their evidence which claimed to show plumes of material moving into the bay as a result of stent placement testing by the developer could not be accurate.

The photograph clearly indicated rich foliage on deciduous trees but the tests had been carried out in February and therefore the photograph had no relevance to the testing. The fact that the photograph showed two excavators on the beach indicated that this could have been taken when the rock armour was being placed on the beach during the summer of 2004.

He explained that the proposed sea defences would incorporate an Ecological Management Plan which was in line with the Cornwall Structure Plan and Restormel Local Plan. This would ensure the protection of reptiles and the cliff faces as well as control evasive species such as Japanese Knotweed.

For Mr Baker’s summary proof of evidence, click here.

The construction of the proposed sea defence scheme would have negligible impact on traffic volumes on the local road network around the development site, it was stated by David Knight, regional director of Colin Buchanan transport and planning consultants.

Mr Knight, who has been involved in assessing the transport impact for a number of developments during the past 18 years including the Eden Project and Royal Cornwall Hospital and was also a panel member of the Department of Transport’s Travel Plan Site Specific Advice Scheme, said he had been involved with the scheme for over three years.

He said the Construction Travel Statement which is proposed as part of the new sea defence scheme would impose specific routes to construction traffic taking traffic away from the sensitive parts of the network and focusing traffic on the sections of the network more likely to accommodate additional traffic.

Two routes into the site had been identified – one via Cypress Avenue and Sea Road and one via Beach road. The Cypress Avenue/Sea Road route was the preferred route as it was only fronted by 10 residential properties at its southern end. The Cypress Avenue route was constrained by a railway bridge and therefore it was unavoidable that some construction traffic would have to be routed via Beach Road but wherever possible, Cypress Avenue would be used. He anticipated that 99.6% of the beach recharge material lorries would use Cypress Avenue.

The section of road which would suffer the most would be the A390 from the A391 to Mount Charles roundabout where queues could build up at peak times. However, during a typical 12 hour traffic flow, 22,000 vehicles currently used that route and, on average, the construction traffic during that period would amount to 10 – an increase of 0.01%.

The proposed transportation of stent from local quarries was consistent with local and regional policies. He said Ampersand had also recently delivered local highway improvements at the railway bridge on Cypress Avenue and was also planning on delivering further improvement with an upgrade of the Par Moor Road/Cypress Avenue junction.

“Overall, it is concluded that the construction of the proposed sea defence scheme would have a negligible impact on the safe and efficient operation of the local road network in the vicinity of the development site,” said Mr Knight. “In addition, it must be recognized that this impact would be temporary and would last only for the duration of the construction of the proposed scheme from January 2008 to August 2009.

“The proposed scheme would also be accompanied by a Construction Travel Statement mitigating and limiting its transport impact.”

For Mr Knight’s summary proof of evidence, click here.