Walton: £800,000 vision to protect cliffs

From the archive, first published Wednesday 8th Aug 2007.

An innovative £800,000 scheme to protect a special environmental heritage site has been presented to campaigners.

Plans for the Crag Walk project, which will protect a section of the cliff at Walton and a listed 18th century navigational tower, were presented at the annual meeting of the Naze Protection Society and are now set to go before planners and funders.

The scheme aims to create an educational public access and viewing platform along the beach in front of the scientifically-important red crag cliffs, which incorporate 55 million-year-old fossils.

Michelle Nye-Brown, a member of the society, gave the presentation to members of the group at the Red Triangle Club, in Walton, yesterday.

The proposed structure will be a 100-metre-long retaining wall supporting a four-metre-wide platform.

The base of the platform will consist of a 13-metre-high seat of rocks, to reduce erosion of the cliffs.

The scheme is being developed by the society in partnership with Tendring Council and with guidance from Natural England and English Heritage.

Plans will now be submitted for the project and applications will be made to potential funders. If funding could be found, the work would start in 2009.

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