News / floating harbour
£12m needed to stabilise walls along New Cut
The walls around Bristol’s waterways are at risk of collapsing unless urgent repair work takes place.
Bristol City Council is planning to spend £12m to stabilise the walls along the New Cut in a massive repair project which will take at least five years to finish.
Surveyors inspected the condition of the walls along the Floating Harbour and the New Cut in 2019 and 2020, and found that over a quarter of the “river wall assets” were in a critical or serious structural condition.
is needed now More than ever
The New Cut was dug as part of the scheme to create the Floating Harbour between 1804 and 1809, with 1000 men digging the artificial channel that takes the tidal waters of the Avon – photo: Martin Booth
Cabinet member for transport, Don Alexander, warned parts of the walls could collapse unless urgent action was taken.
Writing in the mayor’s blog, he claimed that the current administration, first elected in 2016, had inherited “crumbling infrastructure”.
Alexander said: “Failure of just 11 of these assets could lead to severe consequences, including loss of life, flooding, property damage and major disruption to traffic across the city.
“Now is the time to start work on stabilisation measures to mitigate this risk and secure their long-term future for all the communities they support.
“These are difficult decisions to make, as in the short-term construction works cause disruption to residents’ lives and are therefore understandably not popular.
“Our administration will continue to choose the sustainability of Bristol’s key infrastructure over short-term political gain.”
Recent repair works to Gaol Ferry Bridge and the Chocolate Path received criticism for running well over their schedule.
Reasons for the long delays include that contractors had not foreseen how high the tide would be.
Langton Street Bridge across the New Cut is better known as the Banana Bridge – photo: Martin Booth
More details of the future works are expected to be published in an upcoming cabinet report.
The cabinet will meet on February 6 to discuss the plans and sign off spending the £12m.
Four river wall structures will be given priority: next to the Langton Street Bridge (better known as the Banana Bridge), two next to Gaol Ferry Bridge and one near Bedminster Bridge.
Four more river wall sites will see further investigation, ecological assessments and vegetation clearance: next to Paynes Shipyard, Camden Road, Gaol Ferry ramp and the Feeder Road jetty.
Part of the Chocolate Path will be closed while a section that goes over the Underfall Yard sluice is repaired. A diversion would be put in place here via the route of the Harbour Railway.
A short section of the Chocolate Path will be closed during works to restore the walls of the New Cut – photo: Martin Booth
Alexander added: “This is another example of our work investing in Bristol’s future, restoring the crumbling infrastructure that this administration inherited.
“It is on top of our rolling £16m programme to restore six key New Cut bridges and an investment of around £3m into the sluice infrastructure, which protects the harbourside and surrounding areas from flooding, by controlling water levels within the harbour.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
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