Tripling of river wall repair budget is approved

A proposal to triple the budget needed to repair a failing river wall has been approved by councillors.

A section of the wall next to Jesus Green Lock in Cambridge has been slowly deteriorating in recent years, forcing its partial closure in July for safety reasons.

City councillors backed a recommendation to increase the maximum budget to £2.44m, up from the previous figure of £850,000 agreed in October 2024.

Martin Smart, Labour cabinet member for nature, open space and city services, said the lower figure was an "early cost estimate" based on doing the work from land.

A full site analysis had revealed the work needed to be done from the river using barges, "hence the difference in price", he said, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The council cabinet recommended approval of the budget increase in September, before putting it to a full council meeting on Thursday.

Cheney Payne, a Liberal Democrat councillor, said she was "shocked" to see funding had first been approved two years ago and "we quite literally have to pay a higher cost for those repairs".

"I'm now reassured to hear that repairs are planned to happen very soon – but we simply can't afford delays like that again," she said.

A separate project to repair the lock, which has been closed since May 2024, will be carried out by the Conservators of the River Cam, the body responsible for navigation along the river.

Rosy Moore, a Labour councillor, said: "Council officers have been monitoring the situation continuously and they were trying to work with partners, specifically the Conservators of the Cam, in order to do two areas of work on the Cam – the bank and the lock."

The council has now decided to take action to repair the bank on its own, she added.

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