The crumbling walls of Bristol’s 215-year-old artificial river embankments are to be stripped of all the years of grass, plants, bushes and vegetation, so council experts can spot any more damage to the walls.

Worried council chiefs say they need to assess the state of the New Cut, which was completed in 1809, because two parts of it have needed millions of pounds spent on repairs.

Work began this week on the walls of the New Cut along Cumberland Road, and will see plants, grass, weeds and vegetation that have grown up on the side of the wall removed.

The work will take a long time to complete – it covers more than four miles of walls that are covered by each high tide.

A council spokesperson said it would mean footpaths and pavements along the embankments might need to be closed. The work will start at Cumberland Road by the Create Centre and then move along the north bank all the way to Bathurst Bridge, before crossing over to Coronation Road and running east from the Texaco Garage to Bedminster Bridge.

“While it will be sad to see greenery removed, it’s vital that we repair the river walls and make sure the vegetation is not causing damage,” said Cllr Ed Plowden (Green, Windmill Hill), who is the chair of the committee at City Hall dealing with transport and infrastructure.

“To plan the repairs in, we must carry out a structural inspection of the brickwork, which does need to be clear of vegetation,” he added.

“All these works are part of a wider £11.9 million New Cut river walls stabilisation initiative aimed at securing and reinforcing high risk river walls along the New Cut of the River Avon and protecting the transport infrastructure alongside it,” he said.

In 2017, part of the New Cut began to give way beneath the Chocolate Path at the western end of the north side of the river, before it completely collapsed, taking the footpath, railway line and half the road with it, in January 2020, and the entire area took three and a half years and more than £12 million to rebuild and repair.

Work continues on the failing retaining wall alongside the New Cut in Bristol, pictured in August (Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)

In July this year, the council discovered that the embankment wall on the south side of the New Cut around the Banana Bridge in Bedminster was at serious risk of collapse, so emergency work to protect it with one ton bags of sand began. Work to permanently fix the wall has now begun, and York Road, between Bedminster and Bath Road Bridge, is still closed as this work continues.

Meanwhile, council contractors are halfway through this week’s inspections of the Bath New Bridge, one of the two road bridges on the Bath Bridge roundabout, near Temple Meads, with one lane closed there between 8pm and 6am every night this week.