River path closed in town centre (From Northwich Guardian)

River path closed in town centre

11:50am Monday 11th March 2013 in News By Gina Bebbington

A RIVERSIDE path near Northwich town centre has been closed after fears that it will collapse.

Heavy rain has led to the bank of the River Dane eroding to within a metre of the footpath.

The area, near to the viaduct and Vickersway Park, is owned by Northwich Town Council, which organised a site meeting with the Environment Agency to discuss what can be done.

Chris Shaw, town council clerk, said repairs were likely to cost £700.

Tony Fallows, a London Road resident, raised the issue with town councillor Kevin Rimmer and contacted the Guardian to praise the council’s response.

He said: “Clr Rimmer personally inspected the site, which was threatened with subsidence, within a few hours and contacted his colleagues in Northwich Town Council and they had fenced off the affected area with an explanatory notice attached to the fencing and had formulated a plan to stabilize and repair the affected area.

“I would like to commend Clr Rimmer for his prompt response to my initial telephone call and his subsequent calls to inform me of his progress of isolating and making safe a potentially dangerous situation.”

Chris Shaw said: “We’ve discussed the most cost effective repair, which includes driving posts into the riverbank and re-instating the soil.

“You can still get past on foot, but it means walking on the grass around the dog pen, but we will put a diversion route in for cyclists.”

The path is part of a Sustrans route, which leads from Whalley Road playing fields and Vickersway Park and over the River Dane and London Road to the River Weaver.

Northwich Town Council, working in partnership with the Weaver Valley Partnership, hopes to start work on the repair as soon as possible.