Sandwich Town

Tidal Defence Scheme

  • Client
    Environment Agency
  • Value
    £18m
  • Duration
    28 months
Jackson completed the award-winning Sandwich Town Tidal Defence Scheme in partnership with the Environment Agency, Pfizer and Kent County Council - a public/private financed project to provide protection to 500 homes and 100 commercial properties in Sandwich.
The job encompassed 14kms of flood defence in and around the mediaeval town – the single largest flood defence scheme to be built in Kent for three decades.

Using cost-effective and environmentally sensitive techniques, the scheme minimised the use of hard flood defences by allowing local farmland to flood and by installing visually pleasing defence structures, using grassed earth banks where possible, alongside sympathetic building materials.

Various environments

The new flood defences ran through various environments including town centre quay, industrial estates, Pfizer’s pharmaceutical facility, private gardens and open farmland. Works included raising and replacing flood defences, including new steel piling, raised existing and new vertical flood defences using reinforced concrete, raised existing embankments and new earth embankments.

Promenades and pedestrian accesses were also replaced on the project, which picked up a Living Waterways Award from the Canal & River Trust for its contribution to the built environment.

Landscaping

The landscaping works were also a major part of the scheme. In addition to cuttings taken from the original tree & shrub stock on site, more than 200 semi-mature trees and just over 19,000 saplings were planted on the scheme.

'This project has not only provided tidal protection to the people of Sandwich, it has also improved their public amenities and open space alongside the river in a most pleasing way.'

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