Footpaths from Lea Mount park down onto Marine Parade in Dawlish will be closed for almost five months from Monday (4 September), Network Rail has announced.

It comes as part of work to protect the railway between Dawlish and Holcombe from falling debris.

The £34.7m project, which is expected to take until next spring to complete, will see permanent stainless steel netting secured by soil nails installed on the cliffs.

The closures are shown in red on the map above and will be in place until 31 January.

There will still be access into Lea Mount park from Teignmouth Road.

Kennaway footbridge near Boat Cove will also need to be closed intermittently for a few hours at a time for drilling soil nails into nearby cliffs.

A Network Rail spokesperson said: "The footbridge closures will be managed in line with the sea conditions to make sure there is always an alternative safe route other than the sea wall during a storm."

What is the progress of other projects at the railway?

Dawlish's new £80m sea wall is now complete and open to the public.

A new accessible footbridge with lifts at Dawlish railway station is expected to be ready by the end of the year.

Work on a rockfall shelter north of Parson's Tunnel between Dawlish and Holcombe began in late 2021 and is due to be complete this autumn.

SEE ALSO: Dawlish's MP attempts to secure at-risk rail protection funding