Northern Ireland firm Northstone Materials has successfully completed a three week scheme to strengthen the coastal erosion defences protecting part of the famous Dunluce links at Royal Portrush Golf Club.
The scheme, which aims to improve the longevity of the world famous golf course, involved extending the rock armour by 20 metres on a stretch of the East Strand below the fifth green and six tee box.
With major new work underway on the links in preparation for next year’s Open Championship, there were heightening fears that heavy winter storms could cause damage to the course. But following lengthy discussions with officials of the Department of the Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs to secure a Marine Licence, the go-ahead has been given in February for the work to start.
The scheme, which aims to improve the longevity of the world famous golf course, involved extending the rock armour by 20 metres on a stretch of the East Strand below the fifth green and six tee box.
With major new work underway on the links in preparation for next year’s Open Championship, there were heightening fears that heavy winter storms could cause damage to the course. But following lengthy discussions with officials of the Department of the Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs to secure a Marine Licence, the go-ahead has been given in February for the work to start.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi my name is Greg McDade, site engineer for Northstone. We're here on the current
00:04strand or commonly known as the White Rocks Beach, Portrush. Behind me here is
00:09the coastal defense scheme that we carried out for Royal Portrush Golf Club.
00:13It was basically an extension of the existing revetment which was about 90
00:18meters long. We extended it by a further 20 meters. The reason for this was to
00:22protect the sixth tee of the golf club where the next big storm had the
00:28potential to wash away the sand dunes, undermine the tee box and it would have
00:32been washed away, would have been lost. They employed us to extend the
00:36revetment. Basically we excavated down to firm ground to formation level. We put in
00:43some relatively small basalt. We followed that up with larger basalt which ranged
00:49from one ton to three ton and then we topped it out with limestone from our
00:53Carmine quarry and that raised in size from three ton to six ton stone. The sand
00:58that we excavated from the beach, we infilled it around the the voids just
01:04so that quite a lot of people would walk clamber over the stones. It was just to
01:08avoid anybody having any injuries. The challenges that we had on the scheme
01:12would have been obviously when you're working on a beach you've got the tide.
01:15The tide was the biggest issue that we had. We programmed it in such a way we
01:20had a fairly tight window where the tide was going out in the morning and
01:24wasn't coming back in again until the afternoon which gave us enough time to
01:28get our work done on the beach. There were a few mornings that we arrived down
01:31where the tide hadn't gone far enough out when we arrived and we had to wait
01:36but it meant that we could work a wee bit later in the afternoon because the
01:40tide wasn't coming back in then. The other major condition on this was we had
01:45to be out of the scheme by the start of March for nesting season because
01:49there are quite a few nesting birds in the sand dunes. We managed to get the job
01:54done before nesting season started. Client were happy and there was as
01:59little disruption on the beach as possible. Members of the public were
02:02quite curious but we had no complaints from anyone. In fact some people were
02:07wondering had we actually started the work because the white rocks that we
02:11were using matched the white rocks that were already there. Overall turned out a
02:17job well done between Northstone and the client. Everyone was happy. Members of
02:20the public are also happy because they've got a gulf force that is going
02:23to remain intact. It's a big driver for the local economy in Port Rush. I would just
02:28like to pass on my thanks to everyone that was involved in handing over a
02:32successful coastal defence scheme for Northstone.