On Monday 4 September, Cumberland Road will reopen following the successful completion of extensive work to stabilise the river retaining wall after an 80-metre section collapsed in 2020.
Work included installing piling to hold the ground in place, rebuilding the retaining wall and reinstating the Chocolate Path and a section of the Harbour Railway.
There are some remaining repairs to be made on the Chocolate Path, although it will reopen from Friday 8 September with timings to be confirmed next week. The change in date is due to a combination of factors including staff shortages to carry out the specialist fencing work and unavoidable delays to painting the railings due to the recent wet weather.
Ian Davies, Contracts Manager at Griffiths, explained: “The reasoning behind the slip is a combination of our own short term resource availability and our fencing sub-contractors along with the weather of late as they have not been able to carry out the actual painting of the fencing.”
Councillor Don Alexander, Cabinet Member for Transport, added:
It’s great news that work to stabilise Cumberland Road will enable it to reopen on Monday. This has been a major engineering project that has presented us with a number of challenges along the way.
I know many people are looking forward to using the Chocolate Path again and will be able to do so again on 8 September, when we will also be reopening Gaol Ferry Bridge at 5pm.
It will be fantastic to have both these popular routes in use again and to see people walking and cycling over them once more. It shows our continued investment in our harbourside infrastructure and our determination to get complex projects done.
When Cumberland Road reopens on 4 September, a new bus gate (traffic filter) will mean that only buses, taxis, cycles, e-scooters and emergency vehicles can travel into the city centre on Cumberland Road. There are some minor kerbing works remaining around the bus gate but it will be operational from 4 September.
The bus gate has been installed to the east of Gas Ferry Road, so cars can travel eastbound on Cumberland Road up to this point, which also means that the SS Great Britain can still be accessed from both directions.
Any unauthorised vehicle travels that through the bus gate will receive a penalty charge notice. All vehicles will still be able to drive westbound along Cumberland Road.