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Friday, 28 October 2016 09:07

Bristol Water to start work on £27m Southern Resilience scheme

Bristol Water is getting ready to start work on a major £27 million investment to improve Somerset and North Somerset’s water infrastructure.

T6822he Southern Resilience scheme will provide improved security of supply to over 280,000 customers across its supply area, including Weston-super-Mare, Cheddar, Burnham and Glastonbury and the southern part of Bristol.

The new network will see 30km of water main installed between Barrow Gurney and Cheddar, via Banwell. The scheme will give the water company increased flexibility, allowing it to move water from its northern sources into its southern region in the event of a loss of supply, or water back up to Bristol if it loses the northern supply.

Bristol Water currently has several pre-construction activities going on around the projects, including  3km of newt fencing to ensure minimal impact is caused on the endangered Great Crested Newt. It is also monitoring bird movements and nesting as well as considering the vast local population of bats.

Construction of the pipeline is due to commence shortly in the form of two new pipelines consisting of:

  • Cheddar main: stretching between Cheddar Treatment works and Banwell Riverside at a length of approximately 11km.
  • Barrow main: Stretching between our Barrow Treatment works (Bristol) and Sandford at a length of approximately 19.2km.

The pipeline will be made up of a combination of plastic and ductile iron pipeline materials and will be laid mostly using an open cut laying method where a trench is dug. Other methods such as tunnelling or sliplining will be used where it is not possible to excavate a trench. The scheme is currently in the design stage with the exact route for each pipeline to be decided.

The water company is also upgrading the pumping station at Cheddar and building a new service reservoir at Hutton.

The existing pumping station on the site of the current treatment works will be upgraded to cope with the new pipeline being put in. The new pumping station pumps will be capable of pumping 35 Ml/d from the Cheddar Treatment Works to Barrow Treatment Works.

Laying a main through the Mendip Hills has limited the route the utility can take – Bristol Water will therefore be laying along parts of the Strawberry Line, a traffic-free path in Mid-Somerset used by walkers, cyclists and runners. The route provides the massive benefit of being able to gravitate and move water without pumping from Barrow Gurney to Cheddar, dramatically reducing the energy used.

Bristol Water considered over 50 different routes for the pipeline before opting for the final route, which it says will provide the best value for money for customers as well as having the lowest environment impact. 

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