The RSPB Wallasea Wetlands wild coast project. (Adobe PDF file).

Click here for Defra's third newsletter detailing information on the realignment site at Wallasea. (Adobe PDF file).

For the latest Wallasea information and webcams, visit http://www.abpmer.net/wallasea/.

Wallasea Aerial View

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project: April 2010 update

11th April 2010

Successful trial of boat trip/minibus tours

Improving access from Burnham on Crouch is an important aspect of the project. A successful trial event was held on 28th March that offered participants the chance to come and learn more about the Project. The day comprised two three-hour tours, including a boat trip on the Crouch and Roach Estuaries followed by a minibus/walking tour of the island. The event was fully booked, with 40 people attending. The highlight of the afternoon trip was a hunting male hen harrier. This format will form part of a range of activities being planned for summer 2010 onwards. Details of our events programme will appear in future news updates.

Other news

The details of the unloading facility were approved by Essex County Council (ECC) on 16th February. The same plans were submitted for approval under FEPA and the Coastal Protection Act on 2nd March, this submission is currently out for public consultation. As we prepare for the start of further site works technical submissions under planning conditions were made to ECC in late March, including noise monitoring, lighting, retained soil handling and protected species management.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Hilary Hunter as the RSPB Wallasea Island Pubic Engagement Manager. Hilary has joined us from a similar RSPB role in Northern Ireland. This exciting role will build local support and understanding for the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project whilst engaging with key local audiences including estuary user groups, community leaders, and the wider local community.

Construction of the jetty at Wallasea Island is expected to start in Spring 2011. Work on the jetty had been scheduled to commence in Summer 2010 and be complete by the Autumn. To ensure that the works are completed without interruption and in the most cost-effective manner, Crossrail has rescheduled the start of works to Spring 2011. This will also meet the requirement to avoid construction in the critical bird over- wintering period (1st October to 31st March). The first excavated material is planned to be delivered to Wallasea Island in July 2011.

Chris Tyas Wallasea Island Project Manager

Please contact me: 1, Old Hall Lane, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Maldon. CM9 8TP. [email protected]

Great Success for First Wallasea Island Boat, Bus and Boots Day

28th March 2010

The RSPB held its first 'boat, bus and boots' trip to publicise its incredible new project at Wallasea Island and everyone that came along for the trips agreed that it was a very successful day.

The RSPB hired two boats and two mini buses and ran morning and afternoon trips around and on Wallasea Island to promote our major new project. People from Wallasea and from Burnham initially joined the two boats for a trip along the River Crouch and into the River Roach navigating around Wallasea and affording really close view of the DEFRA reclamation scheme. We then sailed to our local seal colony for a close look at these beuatiful creatures.

After the river trip, we retuned to Wallasea Mmarina where our visitors were placed on to mini buses for a tour around Wallsea Island.

Chris Tyas, Wallasea Island Project Manager and Graham Mee from the local RSPB South East Essex group accompanied the trip for the duration of the day and were on hand to answer any questions and to point out the wonderful wildlife of this area.

The trips were so successful that we are sure to run them at future dates. Please watch this web site for more details.

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project

December 2009 update

Temporary Unloading Jetty Applications

The RSPB, and project partners Crossrail, have recently submitted their plans for the temporary jetty for the importation of fill material by ship to Wallasea Island. Permission is required from Crouch Harbour Authority and the Marine and Fisheries Agency, together with approval by Essex County Council of the final design under planning conditions. The jetty will be positioned in a depth of water to allow 4.5m draft vessels and 24-hour access. It is designed for vessels in the order of 2500 tonnes and accommodate two ships at the same time. The jetty will comprise two steel pontoons held on piles, with an overall length will be 127m and a width of 15m. Unloading of the vessels can be from either a jetty or a ship mounted machine. A conveyor belt will be needed to move the imported material from ship to land, this will run on the bund constructed as part of the enabling works. The operation of the jetty will have to meet strict noise limits, and monitoring as required by Essex County Council. The construction is planned to begin in April.

Plans can be viewed on RSPB website at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/casework/details.asp?id=tcm:9-235089

Other News

• Following on from the successful open day in September, we are planning to lead a series of guided walks in the New Year, details to follow in the next update.
• The Defra site is now in its’ fourth winter, with key birds such as brent goose, dunlin, black-tailed godwit and redshank already present in good numbers. We would expect last winter’s peak of 12,570 birds to be exceeded, as the site continues to mature.
• We are now advertising the role of RSPB Wallasea Island Pubic Engagement Manager. This exciting job will build local support and understanding for the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project whilst engaging with key local audiences including estuary user groups, community leaders and the wider local community.

Chris Tyas Wallasea Island Project Manager

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project

16th October 2009

Over 400 visitors went Wild on Wallasea Island!

Our first Wallasea Island Wild Coast community day was held on 27 September. The theme of the event was Take a walk on the Wild Side, offering a chance to view the scale of the project and to discover why Wallasea Island is a true Essex wilderness. Over 400 people came to explore, with many visiting the island for the first time. The free ferry from Burnham was very well used, with 165 people making use of this route via the mini-bus shuttle from Essex Marina.

Three walks were offered on the day, with over 100 people taking the longest walk, a three-mile round trip, to see the new conveyor belt route. The minibus provided for those not wishing to walk ran every 20 minutes, allowing people to have a look the new water vole habitat. The RSPB and Crossrail displays in the main marquee were well viewed, with lots of questions, discussion and positive feedback about the project.

We think this was a very successful first event on the island and we will certainly be holding similar events in the future. If you’ve got ideas for events or activities you’d like to have at Wallasea Island, then let us know? We’d love to hear from you.

Other news:

• The enabling works were completed ahead of schedule on 23 September.
• The RSPB acquired 343ha (46%) of the project land on 25 September, the remaining project land will be acquired over the next two years. That’s the same size as 318 football pitches.
• The first meeting of the Local Liaison Group was held in Canewdon Village Hall on 14 October. This group will meet throughout the life of the project, with the next meeting scheduled for January.
• We expect the unloading facility to be installed from April 2010 and first material to be delivered to the site in June 2010.

Chris Tyas Wallasea Island Project Manager
Please contact me: 1, Old Hall Lane, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Maldon. CM9 8TP.

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project

01st August 2009

Enabling works in progress on 31st July – access bank across Defra site

This project update provides you with information on progress towards delivering this exciting project. We will provide frequent updates throughout the project.

Recent news:

• Enabling works started on 27 July following the conclusion of agreements with Crossrail, Defra, and Wallasea Farms and the issue of planning consent on 9 July for the whole project, together with Crouch Harbour Authority Works licence, FEPA and Coastal Protection Act consent for the enabling works.
• The Enabling Works involve creating new habitat for water voles and building up the access bank across the Defra land for conveyors that will carry material from ships and onto the island. The inter-tidal portion of these works will be completed by 30th September and the Vole works by 30th October at the latest.
• The RSPB plans to acquire the first parts of the project land from Wallasea Farms in September.
• The installation of the unloading facility is still planned for spring 2010 and the start of the main works from summer 2010, following further design work and approvals.
• A Local Liaison Group is being established with Essex County Council to help inform key stakeholders on the progress of the Project and to discuss any local concerns. Local community, sailing, fisheries and navigation interests will all be represented.
• An activity day for local people will be organised on the Island in the autumn – details will follow in the next Project Update.

Water vole habitat creation

Chris Tyas, Wallasea Island Project Manager
Please contact me: 1, Old Hall Lane, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Maldon. CM9 8TP

Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project

29th May 2009

This is the first in a series of newsletters detailing the progress on our exciting project to restore the Wild Coast of Essex. The RSPB’s plans for Wallasea Island will produce a landmark conservation, landscape restoration and engineering project for the 21st century on a scale never before attempted in the UK. It will be the largest of its type in Europe, and will create a fabulous place for people as well as for wildlife.

Recent news:

• We attended an open meeting at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club on 17th April. This meeting, attended by 65 people, focussed on recent progress, leading to a lively Q&A session covering a range of issues. If you’d like us to come and speak to a group you’re involved in, please contact me using the details below.
• We're working with the Crouch Harbour Authority to make sure that ships bringing materials to the island don’t have an impact during peak sailing times. We are grateful to Edwin Buckley for facilitating significant progress on this key issue.
• On 24th April 2009, Essex County Council, gave the project the go-ahead, subject to the Secretary of State not calling in the application. We also need to finalise a legal agreement, and several planning conditions, before we can say the project has all the green lights it needs.
• If everything goes according to plan, we expect to begin some small-scale work in July this year. This will involve creating new habitat for water voles – one of the rarest mammals in Europe – and planning the access routes for conveyors that will carry material away from ships and onto the island. After this, we anticipate installing the unloading facility in Spring 2010, with the start of the main works from summer 2010. More details will follow nearer the time.

Chris Tyas Wallasea Island Project Manager.

Scope of Plans for Wallasea Island Revealed

05th September 2008

Plans for Britain’s biggest coastal wetland restoration are set to take a step forward this autumn.

The Wallasea Island 'Wild Coast Project' will see three-quarters of this island in south Essex restored by the RSPB to saltmarsh, creeks and mudflats, building a haven for wildlife and a wonderful place for people to connect with the Essex coastal landscape.

The RSPB has just given its developing ideas for the project to Essex County Council in a new 'Scoping Study'. This sets out the scope of the Society’s plans, giving the County Council and other regulators, including Rochford District Council, the Environment Agency and Natural England, the chance to raise points and check the project meets their needs.

For the RSPB, this gives a welcome opportunity to develop the detail of the scheme and confirm that it follows best practice, before submitting a planning application later this year.

RSPB Wallasea Island project manager Mark Dixon said: "At a time when the east coast is under siege from rising sea levels and our wildlife is on the move in response to climate change, it's great that we have a once in a generation opportunity actually to put some of our coastline back on a really big scale."

Key points of the proposal include:

• A landscape-scale wetland restoration, including managed realignment of the sea walls
• Intensive studies to confirm no adverse impacts elsewhere on the Crouch and Roach estuaries
• Proposals to raise land levels ahead of wetland creation by bringing in high quality, pollution-free material by ship. Sources for this are under investigation.

The RSPB hopes to start the wetland creation project within three years, with completion at least 10 years away, the timescale reflecting the size and complexity of the project and the extensive consultations needed.

More information or to make a donation towards the Wallasea Wild Coast project: www.rspb.org.uk/wallasea

Notes for editors

• The RSPB scheme is called the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project. It will lead to the creation of new wildlife habitats including 133 hectares of mudflats, 202 hectares of saltmarsh, 44 hectares of shallow saline lagoons and 72 hectares of coastal grazing marsh.
• About eight miles of coastal walks and cycle routes will also be created as part of the project.
• Wallasea is close to Ashingdon, where, in the Battle of Ashingdon in 1016, King Canute’s Viking armies defeated the English king, Edmund Ironside. Remains of trenches in the nearby parish of Canewdon are thought to indicate the site of Canute’s pre-battle camp.
• What birds can be expected? The knot, Calidris canutus, a wading bird which will use Wallasea, has a Latin name after King Canute. Other returning species will include avocet, dunlin, redshank and lapwing. In winter, Wallasea will attract large flocks of brent geese, wigeon and curlew. Saltmarshes and other inter-tidal estuary land currently supports two million wildfowl and wading birds in the UK in winter. The new reserve could lure several new species to Essex, including spoonbills, Kentish plovers (absent from the UK for 50 years), and black-winged stilts, which have only bred in Britain three time.
• Saltwater fish including bass, herring and flounder are likely use the wetland as a nursery. Plants such as samphire, sea lavender and sea aster are expected to thrive.
• Saltmarsh is the zone between land and saltwater. Its range of species can rival the diversity of rainforests because daily tidal surges bring in nutrients and because of the mixture of creeks, exposed mud and specialist plants.
• Because of development and sea level rise, saltmarshes and mudflats are disappearing at a rate of 100 hectares each year. The government has set a combined target for the recreation of saltmarshes and mudflats, of 3,600 hectares (8,895 acres) by 2015.
• One cubic metre of mud contains enough worms and insects to match the calorie content of 16 Mars Bars. Mud and plants absorb pesticides and other pollutants.
• Most of Wallasea is farmland. There are few houses on the island and even fewer roads.

Wallasea Wetland Year One Monitoring Report

07th June 2008

We are pleased to present the Non-Technical Summary of Defra’s Wallasea Wetland Monitoring Programme, covering the period April 2006 to June 2007. We are circulating this report as part of our role as the managers of the site on behalf of Defra.

If you have any queries on the document please address them to either Colin Scott at ABPmer (02380 711840 / ) or Gillian McCoy at Jacobs Engineering Ltd (02380 111250 / .

Should you require any further copies of the summary or the a CD version of the full report please contact me at the above address, by email at , or by phone on 01621 862621.

You may well be aware that the RSPB has a vision to recreate a rich mosaic of wetland habitats on another section of Wallasea Island, adjacent to this initial Defra scheme. This site is adjacent to and closely liked to the Defra site. If you have any questions about it, please don’t hesitate to contact our Project Manager, Mark Dixon, on , or call him on 01474 706328.

The Report can be downloaded by clicking here (AdobePDF file).

Local Residents Show Support for Wallasea Island Wild Coast Restoration

31st January 2008

RSPB invites more feedback on wetland creation plans

Plans for the RSPB’s Wallasea Island Wild Coast project have been put to the public for the first time, and have received a positive reception.

Local door-to-door market research showed that almost eight out of ten of those polled were interested in the RSPB’s plans, and over three-quarters (78%) felt that the development of Wallasea Island as a nature reserve would improve the local area. And of the 625 people surveyed, half felt strongly that the RSPB’s ambitions would give Essex another thing to be proud of.

The RSPB announced its intention to buy a large part of Wallasea Island in October last year. The project – which is the most ambitious ever attempted by the conservation charity – could see wetland habitats developed over 750 hectares, an area two and a half times the size of the City of London. Saltmarsh, mudflats and saltwater lagoons would become home to a vast array of wildlife, including wading birds, ducks, geese, otters and saltmarsh plants.

The RSPB also hopes to include more than 15km of new access routes, including footpaths and cycleways, so that people can visit the site.

Mark Dixon, the RSPB’s project manager for the Wild Coast Project, said, “We have asked local people what they would like to see included in the plans for the new nature reserve, and we’re really pleased with the positive response we’ve had. But this is just the beginning. We are inviting anyone who has any thoughts on what they would like to see included in our plans for the island to get in touch.

“Perhaps they have a memory of how Wallasea Island used to be in days gone by? Or perhaps they’d be interested in seeing how Essex man has a tradition of living with one foot on the land, and one foot in the sea? Whatever the idea, we would be interested to hear it.

Of those questioned, 48% intend to visit Wallasea Island, and one in three already have visited. Access is already possible along the sea wall on the River Crouch side of Wallasea Island, following a Defra scheme in 2006 which saw a small part of the island turned back to mudflat and saltmarsh, for the benefit of wildlife.

Those surveyed were asked what features they would find attractive about the proposed site. A variety of ideas were supported and among these, riverside walks (63%), a variety of paths (59%) good car parking (54%), wildlife watching areas (51%), and picnic and BBQ areas (48%) polled highest.

“This information is vital,” continued Mark, “as it helps us develop a design for the island based on what people want. Wildlife will benefit substantially from this project, but we want to include social benefits for local people too.

“We’re going to do what we can to incorporate local ideas into this project. We want it to become something that local people will visit and enjoy, to enthuse them about conservation, and to give them some spectacular encounters with wildlife that will stay with themfor a long time.”

If you have any thoughts on the Wallasea Island Wild Coast project, you can get in touch with Mark Dixon at , or by writing to him at Threshelfords Business Park, C/O Environment Agency, Inworth Road, Kelvedon, Essex, CO5 9SE.

You can donate to the project, or find out more information, at http://www.rspb.org.uk/wallasea, or by writing to Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project, RSPB Eastern England, Stalham House, 65 Thorpe Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 1UD.

What is the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project?

• This is a landmark conservation and engineering project on a scale never before attempted in the UK, and the largest of its type in Europe.
• It is a visionary response to the challenges that climate change poses to the wildlife and landscapes of England’s low lying coastline.
• The result will be a phased transformation of 736 hectares of arable farmland, back to the coastal marshland it once was. This equates to an area two and a half times the size of the City of London.
• The restored landscape will be a wetland mosaic of mudflats and saltmarsh, shallow lagoons and pastures. They will be crossed by low lying bunds along which visitors can access much of this new Wild Coast.
• Wallasea lsland lies in the heart of an internationally important estuary, close to the Thames Gateway. For many, it will be the closest accessible area of Wild Coast. This landscape will support nationally and internationally important bird populations. We hope to re-establish lost breeding populations of birds such as spoonbills and Kentish plovers.
• This project will develop innovative ways of creating and managing coastal habitats using regulated tidal exchange. Pipes or culverts will allow limited and very shallow amounts of tidal water onto and off the site. The existing sea walls will remain in place.
• The existing properties and businesses on Wallasea lsland will not be adversely affected by our plans, and we will work closely with all interests in developing the project.
• This new scheme lies adjacent to the 115 ha Wallasea Wetlands Creation project, set up by Defra in 2006, and now managed by the RSPB. Our project will provide complementary inter-tidal habitats on an enormous scale.
• This is a partnership project conceived by the RSPB, in agreement with the owners (Wallasea Farms) that the RSPB will purchase most of the island. This will be dependant, over the next two years, on obtaining consents for the project and securing the funding needed.