A major new water supply scheme in Cumbria has won a prestigious engineering award.
United Utilities and its contract partners Farrans Roadbridge JV and Ward and Burke Construction are celebrating after winning Tunnelling Project of the Year (up to £50 million) at the New Civil Engineer Awards.
The judges chose the Keswick scheme over six others from around the UK because of the innovative approach used by the engineering team.
The team used a multi-million pound tunnel boring machine made in Germany specifically for the Castlerigg job. Nicknamed Diggory by local schoolchildren, the machine was lifted by crane into the bottom of a purpose-built shaft just off the A591.
Using laser guiding and GPS location technology, the support team were able to construct the 1.3km tunnel to millimetre accuracy, helping to pave the way for the twin water pipelines being laid between Thirlmere reservoir and Williamsgate.
The Castlerigg tunnel is the longest along the pipeline route for the West Cumbria Supplies project, and the deepest in places where it is up to 65 metres below the surface.
United Utilities project director John Hilton said:
“We’re immensely proud to be recognised in this way because the Castlerigg Tunnel was quite literally a ground-breaking success.
“At 1.25km it is the longest tunnel ever built in the UK using a technique known as pipe jacking, and we completed it in a record three months. This beats the previous record by nearly 300m and eight months.
“This has demonstrated to the rest of the industry that with an innovative approach you can use existing technology to work further and faster, which helps keep costs down and minimise inconvenience.”
The project team designed the Castlerigg tunnel after the original planned route through the Greta Valley had to be scrapped due to landslides caused by Storm Desmond in 2015.
The record-breaking tunnel drive used hydraulic rams to propel the tunnelling machine forward under pressures of up to 900 tonnes.
The West Cumbria Supplies Project will bring more reliable and sustainable water supplies into Allerdale and Copeland. The scheme will link the area to Thirlmere Reservoir, involving the construction of 100km of new pipeline, a new treatment plant at Williamsgate, two new pumping stations and two new underground service reservoirs. The project started in Spring 2017 and will be completed by 2022
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