First as you can see the dredging goes on in Ramsgate harbour, I am not sure if the closest analogy here is emptying a bath full so mud and sand with a teaspoon, or doing the same to a swimming pool.The problem here is that the harbour was designed to be cleared of mud and sand by using the head of water in the inner basin and the sluice gates, all of the other options tried since it was constructed in the 1700s have only been partly successful.
Any of you wanting to understand this in more detail, click on the link to the report by the engineer who designed this method of clearing the harbour http://www.thanetonline.com/AnHistoricalreportonRamsgateHarbour/
Work is continuing on The Marina Restaurant, more detail about this at http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/06/1-granville-marina-restoration-work.html as we are now in a situation where the only sensible solution is to get this finished asap, my only reservation about this one is the lack of escapes to the cliff top, so the people inside can get out during the combination of an exceptionally high tide and a storm.
Work continues with the laying of the pipe for the Pleasurama development’s surface drainage pipe, although it doesn’t look as though this will be finished in time for the height of the summer season, I am a bit uncertain how the council will approach this one. By this I mean will they stop work for a couple of months, or will it continue, as always here the problem is not so much what they are doing down there, particularly as the people actually doing the work have done a very tidy job, creating as little disruption as possible but the lack of public information about what is going on.
A couple of pictures of the Great Wall of Ramsgate project that Eastcliff Richard has posted about see http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com/2010/06/great-wall-of-ramsgate-first-pic-of.html I do wonder if this isn’t detracting from the real issue, which is that the summer season is just about to start and once again the main leisure site in Ramsgate remains a deserted builders site, apart from the very small part of the site they are using to store material for the surface water pipe. So please if any of the councillors, developer or contractor are reading this, let us have temporary leisure use for the height of the summer season.
I should point out that the developer has as much to gain, if not more that most people from Ramsgate coming through these harsh economic times as well as possible and a good summer season can only make his eventual development worth more money.
Numbers one and three slipways were both in use this morning, which raises concerns about the proposed development there see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-development-in-ramsgate-harbour.html
Although I have great reservations about the sense of building windfarms, if this work is to be based in Ramsgate it seems pretty obvious that more than one slipway is needed.
Finally the nasty looking slick in the inner basin, next to where the sewage leak was discovered is still there as you can see. My concern here is that they may have made things even worse by blocking the end of this old and damaged pipe, contaminating more of the Harbour Parade area.
Anyway you can make your own mind up about any significance that relates to this morning’s pictures, click on the link for them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id34.htm
As you can see on the old harbour plan the tide ran at 3 knts across the entrance at HW springs,now the rockery has been built, there is no tide or wave action to drive back the sand that the NE winds bring to the southeasterly pointing breakwater,there it is trapped untill the heavy seas wash it through and over into the Royal harbour.The only way to stop it is costly move that breakwater that starts at the East pier head and rebuild it so that it stops the Northeasterly swell rebounding off the back of the East pier.If the shifted breakwater was to seward of the western arm the Southerly gales would move the sand to the East.this would stop a never ending bill for dredging of sand at the Royal harbour but would still need the mud silt that comes into the harbour in suspension to be regulary dredged.
ReplyDeleteStargazer.
Stargazer I think you can add the problem that there is no sand proof membrane in the rockery and that it was built without any sort of tidal flow model.
ReplyDeleteMy own feelings are that the whole area needs properly assessing by experts in tidal flow, flood risk and environment before any changes are made.
Before the port was built a model was made to study silting and the effect on tidal flow,the conclusion was that there would be no detrimental effect on the Royal harbour,dozens of local fisheman and boatman pointed out what would happen but they were as usual disregarded.The word membrane keeps being used but had it been put in place the sand would still bank up untill it washed over the top the design is completly wrong,I consider myself an expert as I spent 50 years at the harbour and have seen many changes,
ReplyDeleteStargazer.