Severn Trent Water has finally started work this week on its £300 million Birmingham Resilience Project after years of planning.

An official groundbreaking ceremony was help at Lickhill, near Stourport, where the local Mayor, Councillor Henderson was on hand to put the first spade in the ground.

For over a century, most of Birmingham’s water has flowed down the Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) from reservoirs in the Welsh hills. The aqueduct is over a hundred years old and needs maintenance to keep it in service, which means draining it for extended periods.

The Birmingham Resilience Project will provide an alternative source of water during the maintenance periods and will be used for up to 50 days every other year. It will also provide a solution in the event of an emergency scenario such as an unplanned shutdown of the EVA.

The water would be transferred via a 25 kilometre long pipeline from a new river intake and pumping station at Lickhill, just north of Stourport, to Frankley Water Treatment Works in Birmingham, which is itself being upgraded to accommodate the new source of water.

Carol Bloor, from Severn Trent, explained:

“We need to make sure our customers across the region continue to get a reliable water supply.  This project is the biggest engineering challenge we have ever done and we’re investing around £300m.  Although the project’s main aim is to make water supplies for Birmingham more resilient, it will have benefits for our customers right across our region, and in Stourport where the project team are based and a lot of work is taking place.”

Severn Trent ‘s contract partner Barhale will be carrying out the work.