And Tristen Dodd, the department’s director of transport policy, said that the bill could have been considerably higher had work not been carried out to strengthen Jersey’s sea walls during recent years.
Winds of up to 67 mph battered the Island when Storm Eleanor struck last week, causing damage to a section of sea wall below West Park and part of the pier at the western end of Grève de Lecq to collapse.
Mr Dodd said: ‘The [repair] estimate for the wall at West Park is about £20,000, but that is just a ball-park figure at the moment – it is not clear yet. For Grève de Lecq, we think at the moment that it could cost about £50,000, but that is completely approximate. It is really hard to say, but I think the two repairs should be completed within the next month or so, but again, that is not certain.’
He added: ‘What I think has happened at Grève de Lecq is that water has been washing up the sea wall into a crack and underneath the concrete slab, which has created a void. As the sea has become rougher, it has accelerated that and washed away everything underneath to the point where the wall has failed and then the slab has failed.’
Mr Dodd added that much more of the sea defence near West Park would have been damaged had the department not worked to reinforce it following a particularly bad storm in 2008.
About 400 metres of the wall was rebuilt and reinforced with a concrete beam running underneath the coping stones to improve resistance to wind and high seas following the storm in March 2008. In comparison, only a five-metre section of wall was breached during Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s storms.
Mr Dodd said: ‘The damage would have been much greater had it not been reinforced. You could actually see the wall’s reinforcement bar still in place.’
Overall, the Island’s sea defences are valued at about £250 million and the government spends £500,000 maintaining them every year.
In March, the Infrastructure Department is due to embark on the second £400,000 phase of a project to continue adapting the sea wall at Beaumont to a design which deflects waves back out to sea, rather than letting water spill over on to the promenade. A removable flood gate is also due to be installed at the Gunsite slipway.
