Title 92

Hi ***** I imagine you have seen the new Pleasurama plans some aspects of which don’t look too workable, I have had some productive discussions recently with both the developer’s agent an the new building contractor and I believe that they are coming to the conclusion that the plans are not good.

I don’t think that the new contractor would build anything against EA recommendations they are going to both come here and try and thrash some possible ideas out to come up with something workable.

Does the way the cliff repairs have been done mean that a development could be constructed against the façade, or would this make cliff maintenance impossible?

On further point of interest here is that I was talking to the chap who owns the land where the exposed arches are and he told me that when we have an exceptionally heavy rain storm the manhole on the culvert down there is thrown off by the pressure of water and thousands of gallons of water mixed with raw sewage pour out.

As there is evidently something wrong with the piping under the arches and you told me that you thought the collapse on the westcliff was probably caused by undermining I am interested on your comments on this too.

Hello Michael - I have not seen the plans at all. It would be unwise to have any development built against the facade as it's purpose is to provide weathering protection to the chalk face behind. It will be necessary to have a wide margin strip in front of the facade for future maintenance.

The second question cannot be answered simply. It is understood that during the development works - construction traffic is expected to use the harbour entrance. If this is maintained, then the normal traffic that would be expected after the development is commissioned, would not cause any serious deterioration of Marina Esplanade. The life of a road is dependent of the number of standard axles that travel over it. To determine this life you would have to make a prediction of the number of standard axles that will use the road over a given period of time. Structures however, do not fall under this type of assessment.

I am aware of the manhole situation, I presume you have been talking to *****, but I have never understood that the loss of water was in the range of thousand of gallons. I am not familiar with the drainage network in the area and this issue would be best addressed to the local highway drainage department or Southern Water. I feel that this type of water loss from the manhole is unlikely to initiate any cliff failure.

Afternoon *** thanks for the prompt and detailed reply as ever, in that case I believe you ought to look at the latest plans http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet ref F/TH/03/1200 if you examine sheet 23 Jan 2009 Drawing Whole Doc GROUND FLOOR PLAN you will se that the new ground floor plan incorporates a two way road that is so narrow a lorry can’t pass anything. God alone knows what they intend to do if one gets jammed and on fire because of an accident down there but that is beside the point, is it wide enough for cliff maintenance considering how low the car park ceiling is because of raising the road to cover the missing foundations and prevent the sea surging round it in a tidal storm?

When the site was used as temporary fair ground recently there were considerable problems with drunks throwing masonry from the cliff top and I consider that this will be a problem when the new development is built. So it’s a pity that the cliff top can’t be extended over the building with a step beyond the railings to mitigate this problem.

My understanding is that the problem is caused by a storm outfall pipe into the sea which has a pressure regulated valve on the end, is very expensive to repair and doesn’t stay repaired for long.

My concerns are not about the leakage onto the surface but the pressure on the pipe joints causing underground water leaks which could undermine the lower single barrel arches.

With the structure as a whole my understanding is that all of the programs that determine failure are based on engineering bricks or at least structures constructed of one type of brick of the same hardness.

In the end I discovered that I couldn’t come up with accurate stress calculations because of it being constructed of a mixture of different type of house brick and couldn’t see how anyone else could.

I have been told by a fairly unreliable source it was you that insisted on the waterproof membrane beneath the road, would this mitigate the effects of a train of heavy vehicles breaking down hill i.e. would the road surface slide on it and lessen the stress on the arches?

Hello Michael - I did quickly check the planning application that you referred to, and noted that the approved plan has parking spaces against the wall facade and these parking bays are part of the clearance zone for future maintenance. This is dated later than the one submitted with the two way road. So one can reasonably assume that the two way road option has been unapproved.

I can understand your concerns re pipe joints, but I would suggest that if the manhole opening is being pushed open then this acts as a relief valve in it's own way and reduces the risk of leaks within the pipe joints.It is important that the maintainers of the outfall pipe should have this matter brought to their attention.

It is correct that I promoted the need to apply an waterproof overlay on the road above the arches to the Client - Kent County Council - East Kent Area Highways, and they accepted my recommendation. This is as a result of a long standing problem which was caused by earlier actions which should not have happened. This material has the same bond strength as the preceding blacktop layers and there is no concern with any layer slippage at all.

The issue about braking forces is that it is transmitted horizontally to the extreme end of the structure and in this case we have a solid chalk backfill which will not move. Hence if there is no movement of the backfill at the end of the structure, there is no instability, then there will be no movement of the structure.

Hello *** my understanding both from the contractor who is to build it and **** the panning officer in charge of the application that 23 Jan 2009 Drawing Whole Doc GROUND FLOOR PLAN which is how the link to it appears on the planning website the sheet number on the plan is PL 22-100 rev K is the latest ground floor plan and does indeed have a two way road at the back.

I was made aware of the situation with the drunks by the people that operated the temporary fun fair there, they told me that the drunks were dropping lumps of concrete and bricks on their customers, them and their rides.

They called the police who didn’t turn up this was the last straw for the fairground operators who had scant cooperation from the council and the local police so they upped and went.

I believe the outfall pipe is just badly designed and to rely on the manhole cover acting as a relief valve to stop the pipe joints failing and the water undermining the structure doesn’t sound a very scientific approach to me.

The more I learnt about this type of structure the less I liked the combination of the lower single barrel arches and faulty drainage work.

I am sure you will appreciate that both maintenance access to the cliff façade and the life of the access road relative to the life of the development are both critical the success of the venture.

I am most concerned that the work on the access road that has already been done has been done without the FRA strongly recommended by the EA seems to have been sanctioned by KCC and comprises lose slabs on sand on top of the sea defences where there is regular wave overtopping.

Frankly this sort of approach to a major development beggars belief and gives me I believe reasonable grounds to doubt other aspects of the development not least the strength of the arches.

As they are made of Victorian house bricks of differing hardness and random placement I am still at a loss as to how it is possible to calculate their strength.

Mr **** told me that he had a qualified surveyor look at them who said that he thought a 40 tonne weight limit was quite unsuitable, I am of course unable to substantiate this and have no idea what he based this opinion on.