Coastal defence spending keeps sector buoyant

While other areas of public sector spending are being slashed, coastal defences remain a spending priority.  Phil Bishop reports on a sector keeping its head above water.

Dean & Dyball is constructing five new rock groynes at Branksome Chine for the Borough of Poole.

Coastal defences is only a niche market for civil engineering contractors but so far appears unthreatened by cuts likely to affect other areas of public spending.

A recent reorganisation of responsibilities now sees all the money passed through the Environment Agency (EA) rather than directly to local authorities from Defra. Acting as gatekeeper, the EA determines priorities and either acts as client directly or funds the local authorities, depending on the project.

The EA's coast defences spending comes from its flood defence budget, which is £700m for 2009-2010, up from £650m last year. Next year, £804m has been allocated, which is more than double the spend in 2004, indicating its priority status.

However, the lion's share is spent on fluvial projects, preventing rivers from bursting their banks. Phil Wright, managing director of Birse Coastal, the country's largest specialist sea defences contractor, estimates the annual market for coastal projects is in the region of £100m.

Tough decisions

No one pretends that this is enough to maintain the 3,200km of sea defences along the 6,000km coastline of England and Wales and so, despite the budget increases, tough decisions have to be taken.

Environment Agency coastal policy adviser Nick Hardiman explains: "It is our role to manage the risks to people and the natural environment from both tidal flooding and coastal erosion. We would like to fund more schemes than we do, but for each scheme the benefits have to outweigh the costs by five to one."

The agency, in concert with local authorities, is reviewing its strategy and producing new Shoreline Management Plans (a process termed SMP2). Each region is being assessed and, with consultation with stakeholders, appropriate measures are being determined. The new plans are scheduled for publication in 2010 for England and 2011 for Wales.

For any location there are four basic options. These are:

• hold the existing line (maintain or improve existing defences).
• advance the existing line (by putting defences out at sea).
• effect a managed retreat (usually move hard defences inland and create marshland or mudflats behind them).
• abandon (no action).

Ben Hamer, director for maritime UK and Europe at Halcrow, the largest consulting engineer in the coastal defences sector, observes that the EA is seeking to reduce the amount that it spends on upfront costs rather than actual works. "We are happy to support that," he says. "We don't want to be writing reports. That's not what engineers do. We want to get on and actually build stuff."

He adds: "We are seeing more packaging up of contracts. Because there's packaging, we are seeing more teaming up among the supply chain. The agency is moving towards more design-and-build delivery packages. As an interim step, we are seeing more early contractor involvement."

In April 2007 the EA entered into a framework agreement with three contracting groups for coastal defence projects. They are:

• Birse Coastal/Dredging International of Belgium
• Dean & Dyball/Westminster Dregding
• Team Van Oord (Van Oord UK/May Gurney/Mackley Construction)

The agreement is a four-year term, now halfway through, although the EA has the option of extending it. While the three contracting groups still have to compete on price and quality for each job, the process is significantly slimmed down.

There are also two long-running PFI coastal defence contracts. In 2000 the EA awarded Britain's first Public Private Partnership (PPP) flood defence contract to Pevensey Coastal Defence, a consortium of Dean & Dyball, Westminster Dredging, Mackley and Mouchel Parkman. The £30m contract runs for 25 years and involves maintaining the shingle bank that extends for 9km between Eastbourne and Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex.

The following year a 20-year PPP contract was awarded to Broadland Environmental Services (BESL) to undertake the Broadlands Flood Alleviation Project in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads. BESL is 90% owned by BAM Nuttall and 10% by Halcrow. Where possible, sheet piles are being removed and replaced with natural flood defences, such as reed ronds.

"It's unclear whether the appetite is there for more PFIs but it remains an option," says Hamer.

Although Nuttall failed to get on to the EA's framework agreement for coastal defence work in 2007, it is scheduled to complete a 70-week project later this to renew defences at Aberaeron for Ceredigion County Council, removing old groins and installing, revetments, new timber groynes, wooden piles and rock armour.

Coastal defence projects coming up include a £15m scheme in Redcar, likely to start next year, and a significant series of projects around Dungeness in Kent that is now being designed by consultants. Some 20km of coastline is to be worked on, in what is expected to be a single package worth in the region of £150m.

Consultants are likely to begin their appraisals in the summer, with work starting on site in 2011.

Further ahead, says Hamer, will be a programme worth £100m over a 20-year period that includes some 10km of coastline in Lancashire for Wyre Borough Council, as well as some up-river work.

Speed of letting

While contractors found that the letting of work was a little slow in the early stages of the framework agreement, when the EA first took over as gatekeeper, the new system appears to have settled down to general satisfaction - at least for the contractors in the framework agreement.

"Projects are coming on stream more freely now than they have done in previous years," says Hardacre. "The reorganisation of responsibilities gives us better visibility of upcoming projects. Environmental assessments and planning issues still have to be factored in but we have a clear picture of the opportunities available, which is helpful."

"When the changeover happened, it was difficult to know what was coming up," Wright adds. "But now it has all bedded in, it seems to be fairly predictable."

Of course, looking to the much longer term, the UK may have a coastal defence industry on a par with Holland's if sea levels continue to rise.

Hardacre says: "The question of sea levels is quite interesting with the situation in the south east being exacerbated by the fact that ground levels are falling.

"Conventional wisdom is that sea levels are rising at about 6mm a year, but it must also be borne in mind that the rate of sea level rise isn't constant. Levels could start to rise quite dramatically, in the long-term, as a consequence of global warming."

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The challenges of sea defences projects

Building sea defences is not like normal construction on land. The key requirement for a contractor, says Guy Hardacre, pre-contracts director at Dean & Dyball Civil Engineering, is "having solid practical experience of working with the elements".

He adds: "Tidal working is a specialist expertise and you have to be prepared to work when the tides allow it. If the low spring tide happens to be at 2am, that's when you have to do the work. Your workforce has to be adaptable in that regard - they're pretty special people. Having your own workforce and your own plant is a great advantage. It makes you more adaptable and able to respond to situations as they develop."

Phil Wright, managing director of Birse Coastal, says that, to prevent work being washed away, precast rather than insitu concrete is the clear preference. "We have developed quite a significant expertise in placing precast concrete," he says.

Three years ago, with its precast concrete partner SLP Precast, Birse developed a way of using a vacuum handling attachment suspended from a crane to place the blocks, which can weigh up to 20 tonnes.

Wright points out that the linear nature of the projects makes them different.

When working in a seaside town, there are logistical issues. "No one wants the whole seafront to be shut down for the summer," he says. "Projects tend to be worked on in shorter sections at a time."

These issues combine to make sea defence projects take rather longer than it might take to build a similar sized wall inland.

Halcrow director Ben Hamer notes there will be a rare challenge on the upcoming Dungeness job. Troops preparing for deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq have been training at firing ranges in the area, so the ability to dodge bullets may also be on the list of requirements.