Repairs planned for Weston-super-Mare's 'unsafe' clock tower

The Victorian clock tower stands above the older part of the town hall, with four clock faces looking out across Weston-super-Mare.

But any maintenance on the clock mechanism means climbing up a “precarious” series of wooden ladders and floors inside the tower, which structural engineers are now warning are unsafe.

Chartered structural and civil engineers DHD Structures went up tower “with caution” in March last year.

They said: “We understand that the current access to the upper clock level is considered unsafe, and having visited the tower we agree”.

The engineers warned: “Water ingress has caused some decay to timber built into the solid masonry walls, [and] floor boards span significantly more than is typically allowed over an infilled maintenance access void.”

Now, North Somerset Council is planning repairs to the floors and to replace the wooden ladders with new metal ones.

The door out to the roof from the tower will also be refurbished.

As the building is Grade II listed, the council has had to apply to itself for listed building consent for the repairs.

A statement submitted with the application said: “All works proposed are internal and there will be no change to the external design, appearance scale or layout of the clock tower.

“The proposed structural changes are required to ensure the clock mechanisms and working gear can be accessed by servicing and maintenance technicians in a safe environment.”

It comes as another clock tower on the other side of the town is also set to be repaired.

The reinstatement of the four clock faces of the clock tower on Birnbeck Pier is among the plans for the pier’s restoration, for which a planning application was submitted to North Somerset Council earlier this month.

You can view and comment on the plans for the town hall clock tower here: https://planning.n-somerset.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=SC13QZLPLX500