Medmerry

The Environment Agency have announced that work will begin shortly on the Medmerry realignment scheme. Events due to take place shortly are described below, but more information can be found on the Environment Agency website: www.environment-agency.gov.uk/medmerry.

Access Road Construction: work on the access road to what will be the main compound is to start on 12 September. During September a new temporary works compound will be built near the village of Ham, plus an access route to the compound via the water treatment works at Sidlesham. This will then provide the main works base over the 18 months during which the scheme will be built.

This initial work will take 3 or 4 weeks to complete. During this time there will be lorry deliveries to the site along the B2145. On average this will be about 10 lorries per day. We plan to route the incoming journeys along the B2201, with the return journeys through Hunston.

Following this initial work construction of the scheme itself is due to start in October.

Looking after the reptiles: the ditches and banks at Medmerry hold common lizards, grass snakes and a few adders, and we need to ensure that they are safely removed from the areas where the new flood defences are going to be built. To do this, we have put in blocks of black plastic fencing around the areas where we know our construction activities could have an impact on reptiles. Any reptiles within the fencing are then trapped and moved to areas of rough grassland that we have created for them in undisturbed parts of the site. The black fencing is in addition to the green sheet fencing that we have already used to catch and move water voles to safer areas.