Heavy rain and high river levels have caused this river wall to collapse on multiple occasions. The wall forms part of the Arla Dairy boundary, protecting the dairy site from flooding from the very highest river levels.

Howard Civil Engineering was initially called upon to talk through a solution in 2017 and proposed the use of precast ‘L’ shaped retaining wall sections (for speed) clad with locally sourced stone. The unaffected sections to the side of the failure were reinforced with soil nails.

Works for the first repair were set for late summer 2017.

The works commenced in August 2017, but were hampered by heavy rain causing river levels to rise and fall by over 2m at times. In September of 2017, disaster struck when storms caused the river level to rise over 2m for a long period of time. The speed of the river caused deep scouring at the base of the wall and a further section of the wall collapsed. With more bad weather approaching it was decided to install a temporary bank reinforcement to protect the dairy site over the winter and return early next summer.

The long dry summer of 2018 enabled us to finally complete the work. The team kept going, overcoming the challenges of working within a river with volatile river level history and adapted working methods to meet the challenges.

In the summers of 2020 and 2021, Howard Civil Engineering was called upon to repair different sections of the wall which had collapsed into the River Ribble. We excavated the wall, formed a dam, and cast a concrete base. Pree-cast concrete walls were then placed on top before cladding with a mixture of new and recovered stone.