Wood from Africa and South America used in new beach groynes

An Echo FOI has revealed that East Cliff’s new timber groynes use greenheart wood from Guyana, South America, and Ekki wood, from West Africa and the Congo. 

Guyana, a nation known for its dense rainforest, is roughly 4,500 miles away, Congo 4,000, and West Africa, 2,500. 

The new government-funded groynes were completed earlier this month as part of a £33m scheme to protect against rising sea levels for the next 100 years. 

They were built using a mix of new tropical hardwood timber and recycled tropical hardwood planking from deconstructed timber groynes along BCP’s coastline. 

BCP Council said the foreign timber is certified sustainable by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and was selected for its “strength, durability and resistance to marine life which can destroy wood by boring into and eating it”. 

According to the FOI, the timber was supplied by Gilmour & Aitken Ltd and Hupkes Wijma UK Ltd. 

Greenheart is a pale yellow to dark olive-green wood and Ekki is a dark red/deep chocolate-brown wood. 

Only the top rows of these new groynes are made using new timber, according to the council. Recycled timber is used for the bottom 12 to 14 rows. 

Cllr Andy Hadley, portfolio holder for the environment, previously said that timber groynes usually need replacing every 25 years to “slow down the loss of beach material moved by waves”. 

He added the new groynes will help to protect the seawalls and cliffs but without them, the coastline could erode by up to a metre each year. 

Gribble worm, a tiny crustacean, had damaged the previous groynes.

Last summer, the council's £2.4m environmental hub at Durley Chine, which also uses recycled timber, won a sustainability prize at the 2023 Constructing Excellence South West awards. 

It was built with 45 tonnes of old seaside groynes collected from the Poole Bay Beach Management Scheme and wood from a German shipyard.