£80M Dawlish sea wall fully opens to the public as £155M rail resilience programme continues

This is the second section of the wall to be completed, being built as part of Network Rail’s South West Rail Resilience Programme (SWRRP), which saw 415m of new promenade open at 2pm yesterday.

The new wall, 2.5m higher than the last, is intended to protect the railway from extreme weather and rising sea levels for generations to come. It stretches between Coastguards and Colonnade breakwaters and is linked to the first section at Marine Parade by a new footbridge, running parallel to the railway viaduct.

Bam Nuttall started construction on this section in November 2020 following completion of the first phase, which runs for 360m alongside Marine Parade and opened to the public in July that year.

An eight-legged, self-contained walking jack-up barge, known as a ‘Wavewalker’, was used during the construction of this section, allowing the team to work across high tidal ranges that particularly impact the south Devon coastline.

The wall itself had been constructed by September 2022, when all 164 wall panels, 203 pre-cast blocks and 189 recurve units, which send waves back out to sea, had been installed. This milestone immediately gave the stretch of railway greater resilience against waves that flood the track. The wall continues on from the cliff to wrap around Dawlish station, where work is continuing to build an accessible footbridge with lifts for passengers.

Since then, Bam Nuttall has been working to finish the link bridge, promenade, seating areas, ramped access to the beach and a new stilling basin.

The design of the wall was developed as part of the SWRRP plan put in place to improve resilience between Exeter and Newton Abbot after a major storm in 2014 which saw the railway damaged beyond use for eight weeks. Its development took years of studies, designs and joint working between world-leading marine, coastal and railway engineering experts.

Through the programme, Network Rail has also added further cliff protection measures and implemented accessibility improvements to the line.

In April, Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris claimed funding for the fourth phase of the project, which will install protection measures including netting and catch fences to stop falling material from reaching the railway, was under threat.

Like what you’ve read? To receive New Civil Engineer’s daily and weekly newsletters click here.