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Work to repair damage to La Coupée has finished ahead of schedule, with visiting engineers supported by local manpower working into the early hours this week, to avoid the forecast bad weather.
A landslide on the Guernsey facing side of La Coupée earlier this month left the bridge between Sark and Little Sark in a precarious position, and the island facing a large bill for the work.
The crossing was due a survey - which was booked for next month, after an inspection from Geomarine at the end of 2024 had found several areas of concern.
Pictured: Geomarine Guernsey's John White, showing where the damage occurred, and where the repair work took place.
The work this week was sparked by rockfall which brought down part of the wall on the Little Sark side of the isthmus.
Engineers rushed over from both Guernsey and Jersey to assess the damage, before workers returned on Monday to start the work.
Graduate Civil Engineer from Geomarine Guernsey, John White said they worked late into the night over the following days to get the damage repaired and braced in time for potential bad weather this weekend.
“We were alerted at the start of last week and we mobilised a team to come and look at that as a kind of priority. We arrived in Sark on Monday, and we performed a repair to that area, which has involved shotcreting, which is a spray applied concrete and anchored back with big steel rods into the rock.”
Pictured: La Coupée has been closed to all traffic this week while the damage was repaired.
“These are skilled rope technicians, so this is their kind of bread and butter work," he said. "They're all fully certified to rope access standards, so they're used to working on the rope, but yes, it's a physical job.
"We've been battling the weather slightly. We noticed that there was some poor weather coming in at the end of the week, so we wanted to try and get finished before that arrived. So we've been working all hours of the day."
With Geomarine already booked to visit Sark in February to survey La Coupée, Mr White said they had to mobilise quickly once this latest damage occurred.
“We've accelerated our program slightly once we we're notified of the kind of failure that had occurred. Mobilising at short notice is kind of bread and butter work for us, and we're able to carry out all sorts of short notice works, but it's been a little bit of a logistical challenge getting everything to Sark in time to start these works.”
Pictured: Mark Stonebridge (left) and Jose Gouvaea (right) arrived from Jersey to begin working on La Coupée on Monday, and left Sark by charter yesterday (Wednesday 22 January).
As often happens in the Bailiwick, collaboration and community allowed those supplies to get to the worksite in time to start work and beat the incoming weather.
Sark Shipping ran an extra charter to bring over the necessary equipment ready for the engineers to begin work on Monday. That meant the cargo crew worked through their day off, along with the harbour crew and crane operators too.
The voluntary Sark Fire Service provided lighting to allow the works to take place late into the night and during the early hours of the mornings.
Express was told that so many members of the community opened their homes and businesses to the visiting crew to enable the works to be completed.
Pictured: Rope access specialists were tasked with carrying out aspects of the repair work.
Kevin Adams is the Chief Fire Officer for Sark Fire and Rescue.
“The first thing they wanted was water," he said. "Well, the easiest is with the fire appliance, I've got a forklift, and we need stuff going down onto La Coupée.
"I've also had all the time in my back of my mind, the thought of if there was an emergency in Little Sark, we need to be able to clear everything so safety is in mind."
Mr Adams has an idea of what caused the damage, and said it was important to everyone in Sark that it was repaired quickly.
“The work was due to start next month, but obviously this has been preempted because there was a bit of frost, and that's what I think made it expand the stonework that has fallen.
"Immediately the road restriction, and weight restriction, was put on it. The people of Little Sark are in a rush to get it fixed, because then they can get back to normal, and from the Big Sark side of it, we just get on and help them out as much as we can, because their time coming across is precious.”
Pictured: Kevin Adams gave the Bailiwick's media a brief history of the causeway during a visit to check out the work taking place.
Conseiller John Guille is the chairman of Chief Pleas' Policy and Finance Committee.
He said it has been a mammoth effort by Geomarine to get the work done on La Coupée so the crossing can be open once again.
“They got a week's worth of work done in two days,” he said.
Conseiller Guille thinks the damage had only occurred shortly before it was reported meaning there wasn't much of a delay in the repair work starting.
“There was a small rock fall we think on Sunday the 12th. We were notified of it on Monday the 13th, and also a partially collapsed Victorian era dry stone wall on the southwestern side of La Coupée. So we contacted Geomarine and they pulled out all the stops.
"Three days later, we had a geotechnical engineer over from Jersey. In the meantime, Geomarine in Guernsey were mobilising equipment and workforce. We had equipment and materials shipped in from the UK. Their team got here on a special cargo charter laid on by Sark shipping on Monday (20th January) and they worked through well into the night until 1am under flood lights provided by the Sark fire service. Then they continued working all day Tuesday, until about eight o'clock again."
Pictured: Conseiller John Guile and Freddy outside of Sark's Chief Pleas.
Conseiller Guille said other works have also been carried out this week, and a full survey will be carried out as soon as the weather allows.
“They completed the remedial work to the south western corner late Tuesday evening, they spent Wednesday removing the vegetation along the rest of the walled areas on the western side. They're going to come back at the next available opportunity/weather window, to do a physical inspection with a smaller rope access team along all those walled areas. They're also going to look at the drainage arrangements off the roadway on both sides, and then we'll formulate a plan from there, and whatever work is needed, we'll have a look at and take the next step.”
Conseiller Guille said it was important to everyone that La Coupée was repaired and that it is future-proofed.
“This causeway is a natural feature. It's always going to erode. It's been eroding for hundreds of thousands of years. It's going to continue to erode for hundreds of thousands of years. It's how you manage it. We could, as we did in November, continue doing drone inspections, where the geotechnical engineers can review drone footage every year to compare the erosion, or possibly we could have a Lidar survey done, which would give you a 3d scanned computer model of the cliff faces on both side to really accurately monitor the speed of the erosion. It's just about keeping on top of it and managing it sensibly.”
Pictured: La Coupée will reopen to pedestrians and traffic shortly.
It’s not yet known what the full cost of the repair work will be, with Conseiller Guille keeping his cards close to his chest.
He told Express that alternative repair options could’ve added more complications, and potentially left the connection between Big and Little Sark at risk.
“I'm not going to quote a figure now, but I will say Geomarine have been incredibly fair and understanding in this. Our only other option would have been to get contractors in from the UK, which would have added layers of complication and logistical nightmare to the situation.
“They've charged everything just by the hour, we've been recording hours and signing off our sheets at the end of each day. Likewise, they've been upfront about material charges and equipment hire charges. So I haven't got a figure in my head yet, but we'll have a wash up in the next couple of days.”
La Coupée closed after rockfall
Repair work starting on Monday
Sark might need to look at alternative methods of transport
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