Zuider Zee Plan For The Wash Area

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 182, 6 August 1935, Page 10

Zuider Zee Plan For The Wash Area

DtITCH SECRET EMPLOYED IN VJDRK ON £72,000 BIVER WALL

Great things are expected in the historic district round about The Wash, on the East Coast of England. Dutch experts were recently at King’s Lynn, to teach a method of river and sea embankment unknown in England.

It is the system by which the Zuider Zee was reclaimed, and if the experiment proves the success which, is anticipated for it, there are vast possibilities of reclaiming foreshore and saltings which surrounded The Wash. An English concern, the Dredging and Construction Company, Ltd., is having Englishmen trained by the Dutch, and has undertaken a contract for £72,000 to construct by the Dutch methods an embankment for a length of a mile on one side of the Ouse Channel. The essentials of the method arc simpie. Large mattresses woven of brushwood are sunk in the mui at low tide: loose bundles of brushwood are then laid on these and on top of all granite boulders of about 10001 b each are thickly strewn. The weight of these sinks the whole affair gradually more and more into the mud until an effective retaining wall is completed. The brushwood does not, as one might suppose, decay, and is said to remain unimpaired for an indefinite period under water, as long as there is no exposure to air.

The Dutch secret is in the method of weaving the essential layer of brushwood mattresses. *

The construction of this embankment began about two months ago, and two years is allowed for completing it, but it may be finished sooner.

By confining the course of the River Ouse, it is expected that a much greater scoure will be produced in tho navigable channel, so deepening it and reducing the danger of shifting sand banks.

For the ancient ports of East Anglia entered from The Wash, King’s Lynn, Boston, and Wisbech, this experiment is of immense importance. Four hundred years ago King’s Lynn ranked among the first three or four ports in the kingdom, and lately there have been many signs of revival of prosperity.

The tonnage of coastwise shipping using these ports is gradually increasing, and the tonnage of cargo handled at King’s Lynn has risen by nearly 50 per cent, in the lust two years.

Tire growth of the Norfolk sugar beet industry is the principal reason, but cargoes of timber and fertiliser are important contributories.

Great developments are also taking place at Ihe port of Wisbech, because t he dredging of the River Nene is to be curried out as far a.s Peterborough. 'I his is being undertaken primarily for land drainage, but the result will bo to make the Nene navigable for much larger vessels than hitherto. Fixed navigation lights are, therefore, to be established on this river.

There is also a project for cutting , navigable channel from Peterborough o the Grand Junction Canal al Northmption. a distance nF about 40 mijes.