Engineers Halcrow Group Ltd was set a difficult challenge by their client, The Environment Agency. This was the provision of robust flood protection measures for the pretty village of Boscastle, without affecting the soft, rural aspect of an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village had already made national news in 2004, during extreme and extensive flooding, which now required mitigation.

To give the village protection against extreme conditions but without affecting the rural aspect, we needed a solution that gave us a soft, river-bank appearance but with a robust, hard-engineered core,” added Green.

Halcrow knew that during storm events, the performance of erosion control systems deteriorates and that vegetation cannot be relied upon to provide long-term erosion protection. Halcrow therefore, with the assistance of Maccaferri, designed a system that would offer the required erosion protection for the entire design storm duration, with or without vegetation. Under long storm durations, vegetation is ripped out from erosion protection systems, leaving the erosion protection alone.