Steelwork completed for ALB ramp

Saturday 20 Feb 2021

Some warm sunshine was welcome after weeks of winter weather and building work has progressed well.

The most obvious step was the installation the final bit of the steelwork for the ALB ramp. This end of the ramp is buried in the beach so that it remains usable despite any changes in the beach level, so this involved, once again, digging out the beach to reveal the end rows of piles. This was a tricky and deep excavation on soft, wet sand that had be fitted in around the tides. 

The top of the ramp has also been finished off, with concrete and gabion work completed.

Back at the main building, the westside of the site is gradually catching up with the east, with trimming, drainage and service installation and hardcore and blinding concrete layers. The eastern section now has reinforcement steel and shuttering set ready for the first big concrete pour next week. This will finally be the actual floor/slab on which the new boathouse building itself will be constructed.

The other obvious addition is a new temporary footpath to the west of the existing path to the beach, running through scrub from the top of the ramp from the car park towards the Coastwatch lookout. This has been put in place to give visitors and the public continued safe access to the beach while deliveries to the site are being made and concrete being poured. The new path should be open by the start of March when the beach may be a little busier than it has been.

Next week, precast concrete slabs for the ALB ramp will arrive, to be installed onto the steelwork and form the actual ramp surface.