THE next phase of refurbishing the east dock wall at Portishead marina has got underway. The new phase, which involves demolishing an existing suspended concrete deck, is expected to take 12 weeks. The rubble will be crushed, screened to remove any steel

THE next phase of refurbishing the east dock wall at Portishead marina has got underway.The new phase, which involves demolishing an existing suspended concrete deck, is expected to take 12 weeks.The rubble will be crushed, screened to remove any steel which will be recycled, while the crushed concrete will be used to fill in behind the new East Dock walls.The work forms part of the £5.5 million project to strengthen the whole of the existing east dock wall and create a more interesting shape to the oblong stretch by establishing an inner, middle and outer basin.Forming the east dock walls of the outer basin has been going on for the past two months and the current phase will be completed in December.The walls of the outer basin of the marina are being constructed out of 62 recycled steel H piles each 22 metres long and weighing 13 metric tonnes.They are being driven down through the mud into the bedrock to a depth of three to four metres by a five tonne drop weight hammer.The steel H piling work will be carried out by specialist contractors Sheet Piling UK working on behalf of PersimmonA spokesman for Persimmon said: "This new stage is likely to be noisy because of its nature."Sixty per cent of the work is reasonably quiet but unfortunately the last bit can be very noisy when both the demolition is underway and the piling is being hammered into bedrock."The next stage of the work will be the middle basin consisting of building of a new steel piled wall.A new slipway will also be installed and completed by Easter.Work on the development will be restricted to between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm on Saturday.The guidelines were put in place by North Somerset Council to minimise disruption.A piling helpline has been set up to deal with any questions regarding the sheet piling work and can be contacted on 01275 393933.