The Bristol Port Company has contracted ABPmer to lead a team that will design and deliver a habitat creation scheme on the Steart Peninsula.
ABPmer will be working with Jacobs to design a scheme that will create over 120 hectares of intertidal habitat for birds and other wildlife. The scheme is needed to compensate for an area of foreshore that will be reclaimed when the Company builds a new container terminal at Avonmouth near Bristol in the Severn Estuary. Bristol Port has consent to build the new container terminal to accommodate the largest deep-sea ships and help the UK to handle the predicted future demand for container ships to bring goods into the UK.
ABPmer will be preparing the environmental impact assessment and associated consents package for the port which expects to apply for planning permission later in 2011.
Stephen Hull, Technical Director at ABPmer said, “We are delighted to have been awarded this contract as we have a long history of working in the estuary. Using our knowledge of the area gained through our delivery of the Severn Coastal Habitat Management Plan (CHaMP) and other studies, our work will be focused on placing this scheme in the context of the overall management of the Severn Estuary system.”
ABPmer is an established provider of specialist input to managed realignment and habitat creation schemes in the coastal zone. During 2010, the company was commissioned to undertake both feasibility and scheme design studies at a variety of sites on the UK coast. Additionally, ABPmer hosted an “Optimising Managed Realignment Conference” in London.
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Source: abpmer, January 31, 2011