Team works through night to fix 'vital' Sark link

Repairs were due to be completed on Friday but were accelerated due to a poor weather forecast

A team of five engineers worked through the night to complete repairs to La Coupée before forecast bad weather arrived.

Work on the narrow road connecting the main part of Sark to its southern peninsula was due to carried out between Monday and Friday this week.

With poor weather expected the team managed to complete the rockfall repairs on Tuesday - the road will reopen to traffic on Saturday.

Chris Bardsley, rope supervisor for Geomarine Jersey said "it was quite a bit worse than it originally looked".

"Better than it was"

He said it was "essentially rubble" holding the road up and the work involved reinforcing it with steel and concrete.

"It's better than it was", he said, and he stressed the need for future surveys.

Conseiller John Guille, chairman of Sark's Policy and Finance Committee said erosion of La Coupeé is natural but it needs to be managed.

He said: "We're perhaps looking at LiDAR [Light Detection and Ranging] surveys, a 3D scan of the cliff face.

"We could do that every year."

The engineers are heading back to Sark at the "next available opportunity" to do a physical assessment of the other western walls and to look at the eastern-side drainage.

Mr Guille said the road was "a vital link" and there's "no option" but to keep La Coupée functioning.

A statement from Chief Pleas said "a delay of a few days is required to allow the concrete to reach adequate strength before traffic loads can be applied".

The road will reopen on Saturday, with a likely restriction for tractors with "lightly loaded" trailers only until further inspections are completed.