Robin Hood's Bay £1.7m sea wall scheme aims to start in May

Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast is a popular tourist destination

A long-awaited project to improve the sea wall at a picturesque North Yorkshire village aims to begin in May, a council said.

Scarborough Borough Council said the wall at Robin Hood's Bay has more than 770 defects, posing a "significant safety risk" to beach users below.

The defences have been in place since 1974 and protect about 40 properties from the effects of coastal erosion.

A £1.7m scheme aims to ensure the wall remained viable for the next 50 years.

The sea wall, measuring 46ft (19m) high and 525ft (160m) long, is the biggest structure the council maintains.

It currently has an "estimated residual life of less than 10 years", the borough council said.

New sections of the parapet on the wall will be built as part of the work at Robin Hood's Bay

At a meeting of the council's cabinet on Tuesday, officers reported that the authority had been trying to progress the scheme for several years but faced "terrible problems" trying to find a contractor.

A contractor had now been secured, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said, with hopes the five-phase project will be completed by November.

Councillor Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff, cabinet member for the environment, told the meeting: "You have to have adequate reserves for coastal defences and I'm sure many of us will be keeping a close eye on this in the coming years because we are [not] the only coastal part of North Yorkshire."