LAND & WATER’S TERRAQUA ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS TEAM CELEBRATES KIRDFORD PROJECT COMPLETION

Terraqua Environmental Solutions (TES), the environmental arm of Land & Water Services, has successfully transformed the garden landscape of a private home in West Sussex through completing a bank erosion repair project on a stream running through its garden.

The stream, which features a lined pond in its centre, was at its lowest water level this year and with the garden situated on weald clay, it was necessary to prevent further erosion to its bank. At the beginning of the project, it was also found that the 15-year old pond required dredging, marginal plant maintenance and its existing reeds removed.

The TES team successfully installed an oak revetment with pre-planted coir rolls, in small groups, and attached it to a Nicospan system supported by timber posts along both sides of the 80m long eroding stream. A head wall was then constructed with the client’s own rockery stones to create a stable and aesthetically pleasing feature which hid existing drainage pipes that entered the stream.

The pond was cleared of reeds and given a routine maintenance whilst two terraced steps, completed with topsoil and turf, were created to coincide with the stream’s oak revetments.

Roger Baines, Contracts Manager at TES, said: “This was a lovely project for the TES team to work on and we are proud to say that it was completed on time and to the satisfaction of the client.

“There were a few challenges, the banks of the stream were very steep and we needed to find a way to stop any slippage, the 45-degree slope was undercut and the oak revetment had to be shaped to form the required curve which was made even more complex due to the change in the horizontal level.

“However, the weather was in our favour and we have successfully managed to repair and maintain one of the UK’s private water environments.”