Construction of the biggest waste water tunnel ever to be built in Scotland is about to start after Roseanna Cunningham, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, launched a giant state-of-the-art tunnel boring machine in the south of Glasgow.
The team building the Shieldhall Tunnel for Scottish Water, known as the Glasgow Tunnel Partnership, is a commercial joint venture between Costain and VINCI Construction Grands Projets called CVJV. Costain and VINCI have been involved in some of the world’s major engineering projects, including the Channel Tunnel.
The 1000 tonne, 180 metre-long tunnel boring machine (TBM), effectively an underground factory on rails/wheels, will shortly begin constructing the tunnel between Craigton and Queen’s Park.
TBMs from German manufacturers Herrenknecht were used in London’s ongoing Crossrail project, one of Europe’s biggest construction projects, and others such as the world’s longest railway tunnel in the Swiss Alps, which was completed several weeks ago.The TBMs are also being used in projects such as the Doha Metro in Qatar and an undersea highway tunnel in Hong Kong.
The £100 million tunnel, which at 3.1 miles long will be five times longer than the Clyde Tunnel and at 4.7 metres in diameter big enough to fit a double decker bus inside, is a key part of Scottish Water’s £250m, five-year programme of work, launched in 2013, to improve river water quality and the natural environment.
The programme is the biggest investment in the Greater Glasgow area’s waste water infrastructure in more than a century.The Shieldhall Tunnel will enable Scottish Water to improve water quality in the River Clyde and its tributaries and tackle flooding.
When completed, it will provide 90,000 cubic metres of extra storm water storage and the increased capacity of the waste water network will provide better screening of overflows into rivers and reduce the risk of flooding in parts of the Mount Florida/Toryglen and Giffnock areas.
Douglas Millican, Scottish Water’s Chief Executive, said:
“The environment and communities throughout Greater Glasgow will benefit significantly from the Shieldhall Tunnel and other investment by Scottish Water because it will protect the natural environment and meet the needs of growth, economic development and regeneration. It will also support jobs and employment opportunities, including a number of apprenticeships.
“The Shieldhall Tunnel is the biggest of many projects which are progressing deep beneath the Greater Glasgow area’s streets largely out of sight of most people who live, work and travel here.
“Much of the existing waste water infrastructure was built in Victorian times and the modernisation of the system and construction of new underground assets such as the Shieldhall Tunnel will enable Greater Glasgow to realise its above-ground aspirations.”
Working 24 hours a day, five days a week at a speed of about 30 metres per day and at depths of up to 32 metres or 105 feet, the German-built TBM will tunnel beneath a large swathe of south-west Glasgow, including Pollok and Bellahouston parks, and is expected to complete its journey and emerge at Queen’s Park after about 13 months when the new tunnel will be connected to the existing network and the project completed by about the end of 2017.
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