A HUGE "mother ship" was moored half-a-mile off West Bay this week as work on the £14 million harbour and sea defence scheme finally got underway on a grand scale.

The boat is ferrying grey granite boulders across the Channel from St Malo and unloading it into tipper ships that bring the rock to the shore at West Beach.

Diggers have already shifted some of the old rock away from the area where work on the new west pier will begin.

And the new rocks will be put initially in front of the West Cliff sea wall where a new groyne will be built on the beach.

West Dorset District Council engineering manager Keith Cole said that the public would be able to watch what was going on from the west pier.

"One thing that I am aware of from the scheme we did at Lyme Regis is that people like watching people work, especially on big things like this," he said.

The west pier would be the safest place to do that, he said, adding that it would remain in place while the new pier was being built.

Work on taking the old pier apart would happen once it was considered safe to do so, at a time when the new one was sufficiently far out into the sea.

"We will always keep one pier open," he said.

Piling for the new pier is due to start next week and is being carried out over a two-and-a-half week period, although the work itself is likely to last about two-and-a-half days in total.

Two public meetings for residents were held last week at the old Salthouse - formerly the Harbour Life museum - in the centre of the resort, where there is an exhibition about the project and its history. This will be on display for two years while the scheme progresses and there will be regular updates. This is open from Monday to Friday as well as Saturday mornings.

Office accommodation for the project has been created near the old railway station and staff currently based in George Street are set to move there within the next week or so. They will be working alongside employees from Costain, the firm that is working in partnership with the council on the scheme.

When the project team move out from George Street, the harbourmaster will move in and his office at The Mound car park will be used as an advanced site office for the project.