Tuesday 14th November

The Construction Travel Plan which would be part of the proposed sea defences was not unique to this project said Tim Renwick, director of Ampersand.

“I have been involved in a number of developments including the London Eye where a Construction Travel Plan was put into place and effectively implemented,” he explained.

There were three key components to such a plan: informing people such as contractors and individual drivers of the appropriate routes and timing of deliveries as well as creating clear signage and encouraging feedback from the public; managing the process such as appointing a marshalling yard and enforcing the process whereby contractors would suffer a financial penalty if they did not comply to the regulations.

Off site parking for construction staff would be arranged on an adjacent site so the public could continue to use the top car park and a telephone hotline would also be set up for local residents to use if they had any concerns.

Staff would be trained by HR Wallingford to handle the beach and storm management with daily inspections and set processes for storm warnings. A storm warning system would be set up with the Met Office and would provide advance five day and 36 hour reports.

Any evacuation activity would be decided on well in advance of the storm. “We are confident that we can manage storm events if there was a storm occurrence,” he said. “In the event of a storm of a certain magnitude, we would close the promenade and restrict the day visitors.”

Mr Renwick first became involved with the project in January 2004 when the team were looking at improving the sea defences.

“We were advised that it would be possible to do this without having to apply for further planning permission,” he said. “However, towards the summer or autumn of 2004 we recognised that we would need to put in another planning application. At that time, we were having a dialogue with the Environment Agency because we’d set out to do the right thing. We didn’t imagine a world where someone would support a worse sea defence rather than a better one.

“We only realised that we were going to be opposed very close to the Restormel Borough Council planning committee meeting in June 2005. The Environment Agency had been telling us that the scheme satisfied their criteria and with Cornwall County Council, we were struggling to have a dialogue with them.”

He said that Ampersand had not carried out further detailed testing of the extant planning permission at that stage of the process but explained that this had not been done because they did not think that the Environment Agency would oppose the application.

“We thought we were operating in a climate where all the people we were consulting including the Environment Agency wanted to improve the scheme.”

An internal desk top study had been carried out by Wallingfords in 2002 but this had evolved with further detailed testing during the design of the proposed sea wall. He said he was not aware of this particular report until the run up to the public inquiry.

For Mr Renwick’s summary of evidence, click here.

Mr Haydn Hertz of James Hampden Insurance Brokers Ltd, said he was confident that insurance cover would be available for all the buildings and contents of the site, including the 49 units which have a level of protection of less than 1:75 years.

He said he had worked in the insurance sector for 19 years specialising in the property sector with particular experience of advising on risk in areas around the world which are susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes.

Two letters from insurance underwriters confirming that cover was available “at reasonable commercial rates” were part of his evidence.

He said there were numerous examples where insurers have been willing to provide cover for properties which have been subject to extensive flooding/hurricanes.

For Mr Hertz’s proof of evidence, click here.