A popular beach on Dover’s shores is to have its sea defences improved using a long awaited grant.

St Margaret’s Bay and its 550m shingle beach is currently protected by 12 groynes, wood and metal fences that run perpendicular to the sea.

In a survey of the sea defences earlier this year, the condition of the groynes ranged from “very good” to “very poor”, leaving the shingle at risk of being swept away.

In 2017 Dover District Council secured £125,000 from the Environment Agency to secure the future of St Margaret’s Bay, which will now be spent on its groynes.

If the project does go over budget the council also have a £25,000 contingency fund from the EA to support further repair works.

Groynes were first installed on the beach at some point in the 1800s, but the current versions were installed in 1982 and reinforced in 1991.

On Monday DDC’s cabinet unanimously confirmed it would use the grant towards repairing the groynes and will only use leftover wood from the refurbishment of groynes at Kingsdown beach in 2014.

The wood was originally sourced sustainably from Guyana in South America.

Cllr Oliver Richardson said: “In 2014 the groynes were refurbished in Kingsdown, this is an Environment Agency grant to us and St Margarets’ is in need of its groynes being redone and it should improve the look of the beach come next summer.”

It is estimated the refurbishment will keep the groynes intact for another 10 to 15 years.

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