Thames Water has recently completed over £50 million worth of infrastructure upgrades across North London to boost resilience, mitigate the risk of bursts and leaks and future proof its clean water supply.
The water company has delivered over £50m of mains replacement projects across the last five years (2020-2025) – the AMP7 investment period.
Thames Water says its assets have an average asset age of 79 years compared to the industry average of 56 years and is the only company in the industry where almost 40% of its assets are over 100 years old.
In addition, its network also faces challenges from the UK’s population continuing increase in the UK’s population, with the highest population density in the industry. Population growth in London between 1981 and 2022 was 30%, compared to 19% across the UK.
Completed clean water infrastructure projects in North London include:
- Seven Sisters Road: 2.4km of pipe, £21.1m scheme
- Fortis Green: 2.4km of pipe, £16.8m scheme
- Regent’s Park: 1.4km of pipe, £12m scheme
- New River: 778m of flooding defence, £6m scheme
- Offord Road – 722m of pipe, £1.8m scheme
The mains replacement schemes used a mixture of traditional open-cut trenching, sliplining and microtunnelling. The project to refurbish the New River’s embankment used a Giken Piling Rig, modern technology which reduces noise and vibration during construction.
Mark Taylor, Director of Delivery, London Infrastructure, Thames Water said:
“Our purpose is to deliver life's essential service, so our customers, communities and the environment can thrive.
“The effects of population growth and climate change are putting increased pressure on our ageing water pipes across the capital. We have a long-term commitment to improving infrastructure resilience, environmental performance, and service to customers and our mains replacement programme across London is vital to achieving this.
“We’ve been targeting the areas that need upgrading the most, first, and will be continuing to invest in the capital with further mains replacement projects over the next five years.”
Thames Water is now embarking on its biggest network upgrade in 150 years over the next five years (2025-2030) as part of its £20 billion AMP8 programme designed to upgrade water and wastewater services for generations to come.
The upgrade will give greater resilience to more extreme weather patterns, meet the continuing challenge of population growth and support economic growth in the UK.
Local authorities where new projects have begun:
- Brent
- Enfield
- Tower Hamlets
- Waltham Forest
- Westminster
- Barnet
- Newham
Over 30km of pipe will be re-laid in the first year of the investment across 11 projects in the seven boroughs above and the total investment will be around £60m.
Over 10km of this will be in Brent, a £14m project, while a seven-kilometre project is underway in Enfield which will cost £15m
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