Limestone to protect storm-hit West Shore

ASTORM-HIT beach is set to be raised and strengthened with thousands of tonnes of limestone shingle.

Bulldozers and excavators will be used to move 3,000 tonnes of material on West Shore in Llandudno to repair damage caused by storms last winter.

The level of the beach will be raised, but Conwy council says the limestone will reduce the force of crashing waves and protect the coastline. The authority says the appearance of the beach will not change.

Conwy Council’s planning committee have granted conditional planning permission for the work to be carried out by the council’s flood risk and infrastructure group.

A council report says: “Coastal repair works are required to reinstate the area’s primary sea defences along the foreshore of West Shore Beach.

“The works comprise the importation and profiling of limestone stone to the required design to protect against flooding.”

The works would be done on a narrow 380metre strip of shoreline west of the car park and promenade.

Existing shingle beach material to a depth of about 500mm will be removed and stockpiled, and about 3,000 tonnes of quarried carboniferous limestone will be imported.

Council officers say bulldozers and excavators will be used and will bring in stones ranging from 20mm to 200mm.

The application says: “The grading of this material has proven very effective at dissipating the force of the breaking wave.

“The dissipation of wave energy reduces the amount of water overtopping the sea wall and subsequently flooding the gardens of neighbouring properties.

“Smaller material is much less effective at dissipating wave energy, by virtue of the reduction in void size between individual stones.

“Smaller material is also much more mobile and will require more frequent

coastal replenishment tional cost.

“The imported material will be covered over by the existing (stockpiled) material and will therefore replicate the current visual appearance of the beach, albeit at a higher level.”

Cllr Janet Haworth welcomed the limestone plan as a “cheap, quick, emergency crisis response”.

She said: “The entire Welsh coast has been neglected for decades and we suffered the consequences of that last year.”

But she called for Conwy to work with Llandudno Coastal Forum on other measures such as “honeycoloured shingle, groynes and regularly replenished sand”.

Cllr Julie Fallon queried the type of angular, limestone shingle to be used, but an officer told her it was half the price of imported, rounded shingle.

However, a Gwynedd Archaeological Planning Services report said the area was important and a Neolithic or Bronze Age axe head had been found there in 1980. Archaeologists will keep a “watching brief” on the work.

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