Contract awarded for £17.6m project to stabilise Jackfield area
The contractor who will be responsible for the multi-million pound Jackfield Stabilisation Project has been announced by councillors.
Members of the Gorge Parish Council revealed at their meeting that local contractors McPhillips Ltd, of Wellington, would be taking on the project.
The company have already been in place since early this year doing preparatory work on the area.
The stabilisation will concentrate on land between Jackfield Tile Museum and the Boat Inn which has suffered significant landslides in the past.
The overall work will cost a total of £17.6 million with contributions made by the Government's Department for Communities and Local Government which has been part matched by Telford & Wrekin Council. The main works will start on site later this month.
The proposed scheme hopes to stabilise the most active area of ground to allow a new highway to be built which will run between the end of the Tile Museum to near Maws Craft Centre to replace the existing road.
Council engineers are continuing to monitor ground movement on site as well as water levels, ground gas levels and groundwater quality which will continue throughout the project.
The recent heavy rain, high groundwater levels and flooding have caused further ongoing ground movement.
Engineers are also carrying out structural surveys of properties within the vicinity of the works.
A Stakeholder Group meets monthly before the meetings of the parish council. .
Hundreds of trees have already been felled to make way for the main works, which will include earthworks, the treatment of mine workings, piling, river bank protection, drainage, highway construction and landscaping.
At last night's meeting chairman Keith Osmund-Smith said: "The contractors are raring to go, they have already been doing the preparatory works and they are well up to schedule."
