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Concern after road collapses

Wednesday, 04 June 2008

A CONSTRUCTION worker had a lucky escape when a digger he had been operating fell through part of a footpath close to a sea wall in north county Dublin while he was on his lunch break.
The shocking incident occurred on Strand Road, Sutton, where contractors, working on behalf of Fingal County Council, were renewing a section of footpath running adjacent to the sea wall.
The contractors had been busy breaking out some of the concrete slabs on the footpath with a mini-digger before taking their lunch.
When the men later returned to work, they found that the road area beneath the digger had fallen away, leaving the machine lying against the sea wall and perilously close to falling right onto the beach.

A crane had to be brought to the site to recover the mini-digger from the hole in the footpath.
Residents in Sutton, who have been campaigning to have the erosion of the sea wall along Strand Road tackled, say it must now be treated as a top priority to avoid a similar accident from happening again.
Fingal County Council engineers have carried out a number of trial excavations along the sea wall area since the incident to see if there are any other locations where the road or footpath are vulnerable to collapse.
A council spokeswoman told Northside People that these investigations have not yet identified any other areas of risk.
However, residents living on Strand Road claimed the digger incident was an accident waiting to happen.
Charmain Rudd, a Strand Road resident, told Northside People that she has raised concerns about the erosion of the sea wall with the council for numerous years.
She said residents who became concerned at the serious and very visible erosion of the sea wall directly across from their homes have been having meetings with Fingal County Council under the auspices of the Howth Sutton Community Council for almost a year.
“The residents have been stressing the need for urgent remedial action on the sea wall,” Ms Rudd stated.
The concerned resident revealed that on the day the remedial works were being carried out on the footpath, she heard a loud cracking noise.
“What I saw was that the digger had disappeared below the ground, leaving its cab section leaning against some very rusted railings on the wall,” Ms Rudd said.
“The operator had a very lucky escape.”
Ms Rudd also pointed to the fact that a local bus stop was located on the same footpath very close to where the digger went through the ground.
“A neighbour had been standing at the stop waiting for a bus and got a huge shock when the incident happened,” she added.
“A bus did arrive on the scene a few minutes later, but I dread to think what could have happened if the road under the bus had collapsed.
“Remedial action on the sea wall is no longer an urgent matter - it has become an immediate imperative.”
A spokeswoman for Fingal County Council told Northside People that immediate action had been taken to fix the hole in the footpath.
“Since the incident, in the interest of the safety of the contractor and of the general public, the hole in the roadway has been repaired and the concrete footpath has been filled in,” she said.
“Council engineers have carried out a number of trial excavations along the sea wall area and so far these investigations have not identified any other areas of risk.”
The spokesperson said Fingal County Council’s water services department has applied to the Office of Public Works (OPW) for funding in the region of e4.8m for a range of coastal protection measures to be carried out along the Fingal coast.
“The Dublin Coastal Flood Protection study identified a number of high risk flooding locations, five of which are on a priority list for Fingal,” the spokeswoman added.
“Our Environment Department has also commissioned a coastal study, which identified the works that need to be carried out in the Sutton area to prevent further coastal erosion.
“Once funding is allocated we can move to the detailed design stage with a view to starting coastal protection works.”

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