Folkestone's Aberfan in the making!
Folkestone's Aberfan in the making!
Dear all, thank you for sticking with me on this 70-page LIDAR Survey and Visual Slope Stability Assessment of the Leas Escarpment, carried out back in May 2024, commissioned by FHDC and paid for by us, council taxpayers.
When I read the following statement in the report, I felt physically sickened that the Children's Play Area still remains open in the Coastal Park.
Quote 3.2 and 3.3 on page 20 of the LIDAR SURVEY
- 3.2. Vulnerability and risk at the site
The scope of this report does not include deterministic or probabilistic landslide risk assessment. However, in order to provide options for the purpose of mitigation measures, the vulnerability assessment and risk evaluation need to be discussed.
Considering the location of the cliff adjacent to the playground, children can be considered to have higher vulnerability to fast-moving landslide/debris flow because they cannot escape if the landslide happens during playtime. Children may not be able to react quickly and sufficiently to endangering processes in comparison to the adults. At the same time, the temporal probability for a person being present at the site during the landslide is also variable. The playground is occupied mostly during the day, so potential consequences of a landslide may be less severe.. Public perception of landslide risk and its consequences at this playground site will be significant compared to, for instance, a rural cliff. - 3.3. Risk outcome
The risks to the public who use the area in relation to possible landslides at the site can be reviewed under three groups:
i. Risks are tolerable or generally acceptable. Hence, no mitigation options could be considered.
ii.
Risks are tolerable but may not be acceptable. Thus, unacceptability is subject to the marginal cost of further risk reduction and perception of the risk by authorities and the public.
iii.
Risks are intolerable and unacceptable. Hence, risk mitigation options are required.
As discussed above, given the fact that this landslide occurred at a cliff in front of the playground, and presuming that the playground will not be relocated due to a lack of available space within the Lower Leas Park, it is considered that the landslide risk at the site is intolerable and unacceptable. Therefore, the risk mitigation is necessary.
How on earth can FHDC have this information and not immediately close the Pirate Ship and Spider Web climbing frame down is just beyond my comprehension.
Knowing this, I would not let any child of mine play in this area when you read the comments in the report that state the landslide risk at this site is both intolerable and unacceptable.
That is quite rightly stated, that small children will be far slower to react to an endangering process in comparison to adults.
When I read that, my mind thought is this
Folkestone's Aberfan in the making!
Am I fear-mongering? Well, I don't think so, and having read the extracts of this post, I hope as many of you comment on it, please.
I promise this is the last long post with attachments I will do, but I hope you agree this one was totally necessary given its seriousness, which appears that FHDC is ignoring.
I am calling for this whole area to be fenced off from the general public as an urgent matter of life and death, and health, and safety.
LIDAR Survey & VSSA Leas Cliff Summit & Escarpment
Having requested before Christmas under a Freedom Of Information Request from FHDC over the LIDAR Survey carried out during the Summer of 2024 on the Leas Escarpment Cliff face and the Visual Slope Stability Assessment, I can report we received a 71-page document report with diagrams, photos, and a lengthy written evidence analysis yesterday.
LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is an active remote sensing system that can be used to measure vegetation height across wide areas. It can show us the topography, i.e. lay of the land beneath tree canopies and vegetation.
A whistleblower employee at FHDC contacted us and told us we had to get our hands on this report, as basically their opinion was that they feared FHDC may be ignoring its findings and, crucially, its recommendations and doing what it seems to do best, i.e, nothing!
The report places much gravitas on the height and weight of the trees along the summit and mid-slopes of the Leas escarpment, the soil conditions, and the cliff face/hillside instability due to the amount of rainfall we get, which adds to its instability.
It gives dire warnings of more than the 2 locations on the FHDC's own report, where further landslides may well occur in the future, both of which we have in our Facebook Community Group warned about extensively.
This is damning of FHDC, which has had this report since the 26th of June 2024 and has not taken steps to close off the Pirate Ship or the Spider's Web so as to protect children from the risk of potential landslide and falling trees. Just putting a few small signs up that no one can read does not absolve them from their legal obligation to protect the public.
Note in the screenshot of part of the survey where it states that the weight of trees possibly overcame the strength of the roots, which could be a contributing factor to the slip. Hence, it is likely that there is an increased level of risk at the adjacent slopes with trees.
Well, just 50 feet away is the Spider's Web, and just 75 feet away is the Pirate Ship, and FHDC has totally ignored this risk concern highlighted in this report. They are putting the lives of children at a concerning level of risk by their sheer arrogance and vanity in keeping this part of their award-winning Green Flag Adventure Play area open.
We recently asked under a Freedom of Information Request of FHDC to see the Tree Risk Assessment, that the council must surely have carried out on the whole of the Leas escarpment, the Leas Promenade summit, the cliff face, mid-slopes as far as can be visually seen, and the coastal park from the bottom of the Road of Remembrance south side, all the way westward to the Radnor Cliff end of the Leas Promenade.
Finally, FHDC told me they could not let me have copies of any Risk Assessments, as inspection dates are recorded on software that is not publicly accessible, within a remote third-party database that is not extractable.
We disagree that what can be uploaded onto a 3rd party database can surely also be downloaded. What don't FHDC want us to see exactly?
If you agree with us, then please join our Facebook Group
Protect & Preserve The Folkestone Leas.
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