Somerset Scheme Nears End

Somerset County Council’s flood prevention works at Beer Wall should be complete before the end of July, Somerset County Council said.

The works, which are the second phase of a key scheme to protect the A372 and increase the capacity of the River Sowy, started in April and were due to be finished at the end of June/early July.

But, earlier this month, the date was pushed back into August to accommodate additional engineering.

The Beer Wall scheme is being carried out by the Council’s contractor Skanska as part of the multi-agency 20 Year Flood Action Plan which is now overseen by the Somerset Rivers Authority.

“This is a large and complicated ‘design and build’ project,” explained Councillor John Osman, Chairman of the Somerset Rivers Authority and Leader of Somerset County Council. “That means an end date is especially hard to pin down as some design work is still going on while construction is underway.”

Phase 3 will be carried out by the EA and begin later in the summer. This will see the Langacre Rhyne and part of the River Sowy diverted through the new culverts to increase the capacity of the system.