A £300,000 project to invesitgate the stability of cliffs at Barton on Sea will start on Monday.

New Forest District Council is set to begin drilling boreholes on the cliff top and undercliff as part of a cliff instability study.

The six-week project was intended to be done last autumn, but had to be put off because of the amount of rain. 

Portfolio holder for the environment, Cllr Edward Heron said: “These important monitoring works will help to identify options for the future management of the cliffs at Barton-on-Sea.”

Following the Poole and Christchurch Bays Shoreline Management Plan review in 2010, the council received government funding of £300,000 to carry out the necessary investigation works on the cliffs, which are within the Highcliffe to Milford-on-Sea site of special scientific interest.

The site investigations will consist of installing a number of boreholes along the cliff in order to sample, test and monitor the subsurface geology in order to learn more about the geological properties, stability and role of groundwater within the cliffs.

Seventeen 20-35m boreholes will be drilled and geotechnical monitoring instruments will be fitted inside each one.

NFDC will monitor the data for around 18 months and continue to monitor slope movement and rainfall data. Separate subsurface geology surveys will also be undertaken.