The first phase of the Wallasea Island Wild Coast project was completed just a couple of days ago when the new sea walls of ‘Cell 1’ were successfully breached to allow for tidal flow into the marshland.
This coastal scheme, located eight miles north of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, aims to transform 670 hectares of farmland, an area about 2.5 times the size of the City of London, back into the coastal marshland it once was some 400 years ago.
Over three million tonnes of excavated material from Europe’s biggest infrastructure project, Crossrail, has been used to raise part of the island by an average of 1.5 m, creating lagoons and other wildlife-friendly features and protecting these areas with new sea-walls.
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