Severn Trent Water has completed work which began in January to replace huge water pipes as part of its modernisation of the Elan Valley Aqueduct which supplies water to Birmingham from Wales.
Programme manager, Michael Lomas, explained:
“We’re responsible for supplying water to our customers everyday, and for making sure it’s there in the future. For these reasons we constantly check on the condition of our infrastructure and we think now is the right time to invest in some of our biggest supply pipes. The Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) has been bringing water from Wales to Birmingham for over 100 years. While it's served our customers well, our regular checks are showing it needs some modernisation and refurbishment.
“Part of the aqueduct runs across the River Severn at Bewdley and on towards Birmingham, and it’s this part that needed replacing. This was a huge undertaking and a really tricky job because the aqueduct at this point is made up of four pipes, and just after they cross the river, they were encased in several feet of concrete.”
To get at the pipes the water company used a specialist technique of hydro-demolition, using extremely high pressured water to break up the concrete. Once the concrete was removed it was then able to replace sections of three of the pipes.
The pipes were in a part of Bewdley that’s really difficult to get to – access was via a narrow single track road. As the work was happening on the tracks of the Severn Valley Railway (SVR), Severn Trent’s engineers worked with the SVR to use the railway to move plant, equipment, and materials to and from site, with a temporary office based in the station grounds.
The work is part of the water company’s wider plans to modernise and refurbish parts of the Elan Valley Aqueduct. In order to carry out work on certain parts of the aqueduct, it will need to be shut down for a short time.
In order to do this for a reasonable amount of time, Severn Trent needs to have an alternative supply of water in place for Birmingham. The firm is planning to build an extra pipeline to take water from a new place on the River Severn to provide a back-up supply of water to Birmingham during the refurbishment work on the EVA, and in the future in case of emergency. The project is currently still in the planning stage.
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