Supply of Timber for Groyne Replacement Programme 2025-26

Descriptions

Bournemouth Christchurch & Poole (BCP) Council (the Contracting Authority) requires the Supply of Timber to be used in the Council's Groyne Replacement Programme in the winter of 2025/26. Bournemouth seafront, situated in Poole Bay on the south coast of England, has been subject to centuries of coastal erosion. Over time this has been mitigated with a combination of hard engineering and beach replenishment (dredging) in an attempt to maintain Bournemouth's beach sand levels and ultimately protect Bournemouth's town and coastal infrastructure from the sea. BCP Council are continuing the 17-year Poole Bay Beach Management Scheme which seeks to replace the existing life expired groyne network, consisting of 53 timber groynes. The timber supplied through this tender will be used in the construction of groynes over the winter of 2025/26. The current adopted groyne design consists of 29 no. piles at 2.5m pile centres inclusive of a single king pile (longer and sometimes with a marker beacon attached to the top) at the seaward most end of the groyne. The groyne is 70m long and ties back to the seawall which forms the edge of the promenade, located at the base of the cliff. The groyne is planked to a depth of 5.1m from the top of the piles, where the planks meet a denser substrate layer in which the piles are supported. Piles are driven using a vibrating piling rig on the end of an excavator arm. Planks are secured to the western face of the piles using steel coach screws. The groynes provide a system of barriers along the coast to reduce the easterly drift of sand and so the tight dimensional specification given below is required to create the effective structure.