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The Problem
The Background
The Project
The benefits
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The Project
Location: Suffolk
The Countryside Agency's Local Heritage Initiative provided a financial lifeline to the charity not only to implement repairs on the Sudbury common lands but also to improve upon the existing provision. A number of opportunities were identified.
These included the replacement of the decaying wooden squeeze gates with wide and robust wheelchair and pushchair friendly gates. The repair and improvement of footpaths was identified as a costly necessary, although this could not intrude upon the beautiful pastoral landscape.
The almost complete lack of accurate and assessable information about this part of Sudbury's heritage could also be addressed for the benefit of both local people and visitors to the town. The latter always comment most favourably on the Sudbury common lands.
The Key Stone
The key to the scheme lay in a commitment to spend £10,000 repairing the collapsing footbridge and the adjacent eroding river bank. initially, a green scheme was envisaged with the use of live willow spilings (woven willows) to protect the bank.
This scheme grew alarmingly expensive and had to be abandoned in favour of more cost effective hard engineering in the form of gabions (stone filled wire cages). Suffolk county council finally implemented a complete bridge and bank repair scheme at just over £10,000 for which the Sudbury commons lands is extremely grateful.
Since then volunteers have planted a hedge behind the gabions. In due course this will help soften the impact of the hard engineering. Willow poles have been driven into the bank at the upstream end of the gabions to reduce erosion at that point. The repairs to the footbridge and the securing of the river bank effectively validated the LHI scheme and work could continue on other aspects of the project.
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