This week a giant tunnel has been dug under the final bridge in London before completion of the 25km super sewer for the capital.
Tideway, the company constructing the tunnel, has been using huge tunnel boring machines (TBMs) since 2018, with a number of sections of the tunnel already having their first stage complete. Once the outer shell is in place, the team then line its concrete segments with an inner layer of concrete , in a process called ‘secondary lining’.
Passing underneath Tower Bridge on Monday marked the last passage under the 21st bridge over the Thames as it works from west to east, with 19 kilometres of tunnel now constructed.
The 25km ‘super sewer’, which will clean up the tens of millions of tonnes of sewage that currently pollute the River Thames, has had its outer tunnel shell built underneath west and central London and will soon start its final phase of digging in the east.
Roger Bailey, Tideway’s Chief Technical Officer, said:
“Getting these giant machines to work away under the river has taken a huge amount of engineering expertise and successfully passing under the last bridge in central London marks an important milestone for the project.
“Most people have no idea that this massive tunnel is being built right in the centre of London, underneath one of the world’s most iconic cities, and the last bridge to pass under is perhaps the most famous.
“Our engineering and construction teams, working closely with the bridge’s owner, the City of London Corporation, have done a superb job – and we’re now closer than ever to a cleaner River Thames.”
In line with tradition in the tunnelling world, Tideway has named all of its machines after empowering women from London’s history. Ursula, the giant TBM named after the British cryobiologist Dr Audrey ‘Ursula’ Smith, passed under Tower Bridge this week.
The TBM will finish the journey at the Chambers Wharf site in Bermondsey, marking 7.6 kilometres of tunnelling from where it picked up the job in Battersea, using 4,227 concrete segments to form the tunnel.
Two other machines have already completed the first stage of tunnelling from Battersea to Acton, and the most easterly section from Bermondsey to Stratford will start soon.
The central section of the project, between Fulham and Bermondsey, is being jointly delivered by contractors Ferrovial and Laing O’Rourke.
The project is due for completion in 2025 and so far, has created more than 4,000 jobs from across its 24 construction sites.
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