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Marine Lake at Weston-super-Mare will reopen this weekend after long closure
The seafront attraction is still clogged up with mud and silt
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Weston-super-Mare’s Marine Lake will reopen to swimmers this weekend after a lengthy closure.
The lake has been closed since April to allow the start of work to move thousands of tonnes of silt built up over the years.
Weston Marine Lake.
- Credit: North Somerset Council
Work to restore Weston Marine Lake and flush out built-up silt are forging ahead with a new trial in motion this week.
North Somerset Council has pledged to invest £300,000 to bring the lake back into use as a community hub for watersports. The authority is now awaiting a licence from the Government’s Marine Management Organisation, which will permit the removal of built-up silt from the lake.
In the interim, the council is trialling various methods of silt agitation to encourage large amounts of the material to be flushed out with the tide. In recent weeks, an excavating digger has worked alongside the causeway to churn up compacted silt, resulting in a reduction of an estimated 1,800 tonnes, approximately five per cent of the total silt volume.
“A few people have asked why we’re doing this work now, and there are several reasons. This weekend is the first of three periods of very high spring tides, so we can maximise the use of tidal energy during this eight-week closure of the lake.
“We want to minimise the disruption caused by the works, but we also want to get the work started so the improvements are in place as soon as possible.
“We have Natural England’s approval for carrying out the natural tidal flushing during spring, which would not have been the case had we delayed until after the summer due to the number of migrating birds in the area. Marine works in the winter are also more difficult and costly because of storms and unpredictable conditions.
Work starts on flushing tonnes of silt from Weston-super-Mare s Marine Lake
The work is part of a £300,000 project to revitalise Weston-super-Mare s seafront Marine Lake
14:22, 20 APR 2021
Updated
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Work has begun to start flushing out thousands of tonnes of silt at Weston-super-Mare s Marine Lake.
The lake has been temporarily closed off, with fencing put around its walkways, in the hope high spring tides will start to naturally wash out the build up of silt.