Prompted to update the blog site today which made me check the most recent photos I have from the landslip area. I took these in Jan 2021.
Plus a short video recording (above) recording the water on the slope. Thought to be ground water but testing didn't support that. It's permanently wet nowadays. Used to come and go but now its a rather nice pond supporting lots of bird life. I'm hopeful of tadpoles some day (and frogs of course). The fox cubs also use it. Simply a wildlife haven nowadays. It's lovely.
Photo from Ironmills Park. Looking through the trees, the retaining walls are barely visible with the poor light. The section of retaining wall most easily picked out over on the right of the photo, is the intact wall section immediately below the old steps and our ground. This area was soil nailed. Whereas the area on the left of this photo was not soil nailed. It's what I call the "second slip" because this area slipped after the initial slip.
Here is that area of retaining wall below the second slip. It has popped 2 out of 5 sleepers and the remaining 3 are twisted out of alignment.
That matting that looks a bit like artificial ski slope material sits proud of the land underneath. Its akin to being on a trampoline in parts. Because the sands and gravels are washing off the bank here. Perhaps soil nailing would have stopped that. Who knows.
Now the reason for the prompt.
I placed one of the Decorated Bikes from last years community project at the top of the landslip area. Titivated it a bit, photographed it posted it on the local Facebook forum. I was really trying to attract attention for the possible replacement of the ugly fencing with something more pleasing. Or, maybe no fencing at all. There's not much of a drop and the ground is soft here. Fencing farther down the slope could stop public injury, at the site of the retaining wall perhaps. Just a thought. Its a nice view from the slope.
view from the top
