Work on clearing Portishead’s disused railway has been completed.

The £120,000 project was carried out by Glendale, a green services provider, along just more than three miles of the line.

The clearance was necessary to allow a full topographical survey of the line to be done, enabling the next stage of engineering and design work for the project to take place.

Phase one of the clearance was carried out in 2014 and allowed engineers to access structures for surveying. The latest phase saw 12 staff members working over a five-week period and will be followed by a third phase of clearance work on some parts of the freight line in Pill.

Jon Eglin, arboriculture manager for Glendale, said: “The delivery of this large project, with limited access and an unusual environment, is a credit to the arborist teams at Glendale. The scale of the work involved required a real team effort and the teams handled it exceptionally well.”

The reopening of the rail link between Portishead in Bristol is targeted for 2019, with construction due to start in 2017.

A site for a new station in Portishead has been chosen and a host of detailed design work will now be carried out as part of the wider MetroWest project.