News / Chocolate Path
Tides blamed for latest delays to Chocolate Path repairs
Despite the River Avon having the second largest tidal range in the world, with the tidal waters carried through the city via the New Cut for more than 200 years, it is tides that have been blamed for the latest delay to reopening the Chocolate Path.
The Chocolate Path has been closed since December 2017 with part of it collapsing into the New Cut in early 2020.
The route – so named because of the path’s resemblance to bars of chocolate – has been out of bounds since, branded unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians with repairs costing £11m.
is needed now More than ever
The end of July is the new estimated finishing date to reopen the Chocolate Path, with the city council blaming “unavoidable delays in the project”.
Construction work by Griffiths, the council’s contractor, to stabilise Cumberland Road has seen teams recently rebuilding the final sections of river wall but they have “struggled to gain access with the high spring tides”.
Workers have also found that large sections of the railway wall “had much more substantial foundations than documented, with large lumps of dense rock and concrete that needed to be excavated, which has slowed progress”.
The chocolate path in happier times in 2014, although some subsidence can already be seen – photo by Jon Usher
Cabinet member for transport, Don Alexander, said that “it’s disappointing that the repairs will carry on into the summer when we had been expecting to reopen the Chocolate Path in the spring”.
Alexander said: “As with any complex engineering project, we can’t cut corners. Repairing our Victorian infrastructure often needs bespoke solutions, as in this case.
“We’ll keep the pressure up to reopen the Chocolate Path as soon as possible and I’d like to thank everyone once again for bearing with us while we restore this important piece of our city’s harbourside infrastructure, as part of our ongoing multi-million-pound investment.”
Main photo: Bristol City Council
Read next:
- Dire warnings over future of New Cut
- Could collapse of Cumberland Road wall mean rethink of Western Harbour plans?
- Repairs to Chocolate Path to be finished ‘in early 2023’
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