Scheme Components
Wall A - In 2001 Wallasea Farms Ltd constructed a new seawall to provide coastal protection.
Area A - The 50ha between Wall A and the existing coastal defences forms part of the realignment site is referred to as ‘Area A’. The walls Area A is divided into two separate sections referred to as ‘Area A (west)’ which is approximately 9ha in size and ‘Area A (east)’ which is approximately 41ha
Wall B - To meet the full compensation requirements, and create a total area for realignment of around 108ha, a second wall (‘Wall B’) was built by DEFRA to the east.
Area B - The area in front of Wall B covers 58ha and it will be separate from the adjacent Area A.
Recharge/Saltmarsh - If Areas A and B were flooded they would be too low lying to create saltmarsh (which only grows at the top of the shore which is less frequently covered by the tide). Therefore to help grow saltmarsh habitat a band of elevated land was created in front of Walls A and B. This was done by importing dredge sediments material from Harwich and discharging them into a retaining bund at the back of the site.
Breaches 1 to 6 - In June July 2006 six breaches were excavated in the existing sea wall to allow tidal waters. These were located as follows: - Breach 1 (Overland Point) 60m wide; Breach 2 (Grassland Point) 100m wide; Breach 3 (Fleet Point East) 100m wide; Breach 4 (Ringwood Point) 210m wide; Breach 5 (Barrington Point) 60m breach and Breach 6 (Barrington Point East) 60m breach.
Monitoring Count Sections 1 to 9 - To facilitate the ecological monitoring
work (especially the winter bird counts) that will be undertaken on this
site, the whole area has been divided up into similarly sized areas numbered
1 to 9. Statistics for each section will be collected over a 5-year monitoring
programme.