00:00 Men at work as passengers in Kent struggle to get to work.
00:05 Last Friday, Network Rail found a 40-metre crack in the rail embankment next to Newington,
00:11 leading to emergency repairs this week.
00:14 The landslip has left passengers in the county who rely on the train line between Gillingham
00:19 and Sittingbourne stuck between a rock and a hard place.
00:23 So tens of thousands of passengers are using this line, some to commute to London, some
00:28 to go down to the coastal towns and some to go into Canterbury for the universities and
00:33 shopping there.
00:34 So we know this has hugely affected our passengers and we do thank them, but this is all about
00:39 getting our passengers home safe every day and as you can see by the works behind me,
00:44 it's been a serious safety incident here at Newington and the works have been vital to
00:49 actually stabilise the line and make it safe for the future.
00:52 You can see the scale of the work being done here in Newington just over my shoulder.
00:56 The embankment is five metres high.
01:00 That is taller than a two-storey building and 4,000 tonnes of gravel is being used to
01:06 stabilise this embankment.
01:09 But Network Rail says that sites like these could become more common with climate change
01:15 getting worse in the county.
01:17 This is the wettest 12 months on record on Kent, so our embankments are saturated and
01:22 unfortunately over the last few years we have seen quite a big increase in embankment or
01:28 earthworks.
01:29 These types of works are hugely costly and as I've already said, we've spent massively
01:35 more than we planned to in this control period.
01:39 The railway, like probably like everywhere else, is facing growing costs and challenges
01:44 around climate change and it will need a lot of investment to ensure that actually we are
01:52 able to manufacture it as we move forward.
01:55 Works are on track to come to a halt by Monday, with services resuming at the beginning of
02:00 next week.
02:02 But with these emergency repairs becoming more common, Kent commuters will have to dig
02:06 in and brace themselves for future disruption.
02:10 Oliver Leeds of the Sacks reporting for KMTV.
Comments