Peel residents will have to put up with 50 truck movements a day in the town from 7am to 7pm from next week.

The trucks will be used to carry tonnes of waste material from the marina up to a drying lagoon site near the power station.

Removal of the silt, arranged by the Department of Infrastructure, begins on Tuesday (March 17).

It will involve two tractors and trailers undertaking a total of 50 movements every day until May 29 during the first of two dredging programmes.

The dredging process will involve using a long reach excavator on a floating barge, and the material will be transported 450 metres in purpose-designed trailers to a temporary drainage pool constructed in a field upstream from the marina, beyond the power station.

Traffic

A road closure order has been put in place to cover the path the trailers will take from the boat yard on East Quay to the former steam railway line.

Drivers and pedestrians will be able to pass through the area as it will be under the control of the contractors who will be responsible for traffic management and indicate when it is safe to proceed.

The former track from Mill Road to the drainage pool will be subject to a full-time road closure during the duration of the dredging programme, but access will be maintained for businesses and residents.

After spending the summer in the drying lagoon, the DoI plans to dump the material at Turkeylands Quarry. Neither the department nor site operator Colas Ltd has submitted a planning application for this.

Peel residents will face similar disruption next spring when the other half of the 44,000 tonnes of silt is removed.