Washed up on the Beach in Essex
For the last three and a half years the Land and Marine Survey Group has been undertaking bathymetric and topographical surveys of cliffs, sea defences and intertidal areas along the Essex coast for the Environment Agency as part of their coastal defence management programme.
Along most of the coast the land survey work involved undertaking beach profile surveys at 1km intervals at low tide to a distance of up to 5 km offshore along the whole of the 80 km of the Essex coastline. Over sections of the coast where there are higher rates of beach erosion, the surveys were carried out at 100m intervals.
Our intrepid surveyors have worked winter and summer in all weathers (except fog) on land as diverse as promenades, bird sanctuaries and MOD live fire ranges. Problems encountered during the site works have ranged from skirting WWII sea mines, avoiding spent rockets, Essex girls and worst of all - the dreaded curious tourists!
The initial contract was awarded for one year on the basis of a competitive tender. The Survey Group was then able to negotiate the subsequent surveys. The Environment Agency is developing partnering for the acquisition of professional services with the emphasis on quality and value. To this end, they are using the Professional Services Contract as the basis for future work and are developing national survey specifications in consultation with their partners in the surveying industry.
The land surveyors, are to be commended for this work as the Environment Agency’s supervising Flood Defence Engineer recently commented that “the quality of survey and reporting is vastly superior to most of the other companies who have been engaged in coastal monitoring”. |
