Decision details
City Wall closure for Piling Works
Decision Maker: Corporate Director of Place
Decision status: Decision Made
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Decision:
York Station Gateway Project – Package
2.
Permanent closure of the City Walls between Station Rise and
Micklegate Bar for a further 4-week period until high-risk activity
- piling works are complete and Health and Safety measures have
been put in place.
The extension to the closure is required owing to unexpected ground
conditions which required further design to the piling, and
equipment breakdown delaying the piling works.
The 4-week closure allows safety measures to be installed, enabling
the walls to be opened safely from Friday 26th July 2024, or
earlier subject to a further risk assessment.
Decision - Implement Option 3. Whilst further closure is
unfortunate public safety is a priority and I note work to find a
solution to allow access is planned for the summer holidays.
Options Considered:
Options Considered:
Due to the permanent and currently ongoing change in landscape at
the foot of the walls, a change in behaviour is expected of the
public, owing to interest in the works. Options considered are
numbered below:
1.Reopening the walls without implementing any safety
measures:
Reopening the walls immediately was considered, but doing so
without implementing or considering any safety measures fails to
address the Health and Safety risks identified by Sisk and the
Ancient Monuments manager, potentially exposing The Council to
liability for injuries to the public; such as:
•Increased risk of fall due to visitors leaning over Walls
owing to the interest in works and/or the permanent changes to the
landscape.
•Spray from concrete hose delivery pipe during piling.
•Discharge of materials due to auger withdrawal during piling
operations.
•Spray from cleaning equipment during piling operations.
Deploying marshals to supervise the public on the Walls is not
considered practical given the lack of space on the walls and the
cost involved.
2.Maintaining the closure for a further 4-week period whilst the
installation of temporary safety measures is arranged:
The installation of temporary safety measures such as safety
netting, Heras fencing and acrow props have been considered.
Temporary mounted debris screens have also been considered. We do
not believe this is a practical solution as it requires access on
the sloping nature of the embankment. Also, as these require
Scheduled Ancient Monument consent (SMC), this would not address
the issue any faster than a permanent solution.
Temporary measures require daily checks to ensure they are fit for
purpose, which need to be resourced and poses significant
installation and monitoring costs.
If the material is to be fixed to the monument, we require SMC and
careful consideration in terms of stress to the monument must be
considered. Temporary measures fail to adequately address the
long-term concerns related to the permanent change to the Station
Gateway.
As most of the costs are labour and resource, installing temporary
measures is estimated to cost approximately £15,000 and we
have not identified a practical temporary solution yet.
Temporary measures do not address the residual heightened risk of
falls due to behavioural changes by visitors on the City Walls,
such as those already observed during the Queen Street bridge
demolition and preparatory piling works. Future activities in the
programme to create the public realm and new Station Gateway would
likely require a barrier system owing to the same curious
behaviours. Therefore, a permanent solution is likely
required.
3.Maintaining the closure for a further 4-week period whilst a
permanent solution is agreed with Historic England:
Other areas of the City Walls with a heightened risk of falls
include 25mm stainless steel safety bars, installed between the
crenels. This option will be explored by the Council’s
Ancient monuments manager alongside Historic England. The estimated
cost of this permanent solution is approximately £20,000,
with a short lead-in time and estimated delivery period of 2
weeks.
The heightened risk of falls due to ongoing construction works had
been identified and owes to the initial 6-week closure agreement,
however the residual risk had not been identified and only became
more apparent as the scale of landscape change at the foot of the
wall was revealed with the removal of Queen Street bridge.
Implementing a permanent solution will prevent the likelihood to
need to do further wall closures or repeated spending on temporary
safety measures. Therefore, using the proposed 4-week closure to
investigate and install a permanent solution is the most
financially optimal option. The only other wall closure anticipated
would be during the full weekend closure, planned to demolish the
balance of the existing Queen Street bridge.
It is considered that residual risk remains in this section of the
walls owing to the permanent change to the highway configuration
around Tofts Tower.
4.Maintaining another full 8-week closure until the piling and
capping beam works are complete.
Keeping the walls closed for a further 8-weeks brings a significant
chance of reputational damage to the authority, as this is during
the peak visiting season. The matter of still requiring a solution
for the walls needs to be discussed with Historic England during
the next requested 4-week closure period.
Option 4 does not address the potential for residual risk
associated with falls, debris and permanent landscape
changes.
Feedback from Historic England regarding these options is expected
on Tuesday 02nd July. We expect the walls to be ready to open
safely from Friday 26th July 2024, or sooner owing to a further
risk assessment. The Council’s ancient monument manager is
having a preliminary discussion but as stated above precedent has
been set elsewhere on other elements of the City Wall if deemed
necessary. We wouldn’t make suggestions that we believe would
not be acceptable to Historic England because they set good
practice for the management of ancient monuments that we follow.
The fallback position is that the risks will continue to be
monitored and appropriate actions taken to keep visitors
safe.
Options Rejected:
Option 2 is workable but options 1 and 4 have
been rejected on the basis of Health and Safety risks.
Publication date: 28/06/2024
Date of decision: 27/06/2024