A team working on laying a new pipe line connecting Yorkshire Water works in East and North Yorkshire can't have faced many more complicated challenges than the famous Gypsy Race on the Yorkshire Wolds. Monitored by the Chalk Rivers Trust as one of the finest examples in the north, the watercourse has its own special significance.

But, with a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on one bank and the potential for significant archaeological finds on the other, the Laing O'Rourke team had to think long and hard about how they were going to get a 500mm pipe across without damaging either - or the river itself.

"It wasn't easy, but thanks to close liaison with the Chalk Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency we came up with a way of building a flume with sandbags and, with help from a number of pumps and drainage ditches, diverting the water away from where we were working," said Laing's manager Mike Grierson. "That way, we could use our excavators to lay the pipe beneath the river bed without risking the natural environment or the areas where archaeologists believe there may be some significant finds.

"It was a race against time as we couldn't hold the river back for long but it was a success in the end and we'd like to say a big thank you to all the agencies involved including the EA, the Chalk Rivers Trust, engineering consultants Arup and our sub-contractors Ken Rodney Construction."

The new pipeline will connect water treatment works at Haisthorpe near Bridlington with Irton, near Scarborough, offering an estimated 33,000 homes in Scarborough and Filey the security of an alternative supply. A further connection will follow with the works at Tophill Low near Driffield, connecting the East Coast with the Yorkshire Water grid which has helped protect the region from hosepipe bans or any other form of supply restriction for more than 12 years.

Commenting on the £19m project , which was launched back in the summer, Paul Robins, Production Delivery Manager with Yorkshire Water, said:

"The pipeline was more than a year in the planning and is likely to take us about the same lengtrh of time to complete."

"We always knew the Gypsy Race was going to be a bit of a conundrum and finishing it is a significant milestone for us. Everyone involved should be proud of a job well done."