Thumbs up given for major water supply upgrade works near Lancaster

Monday, 9 January 2023 13:07

By Greg Lambert @greglam72

"A massively important project" to upgrade the supply of drinking water to 2.5 million people across the North West has been given the thumbs up by councillors.

A major upgrade is planned for the 109km pipeline of the Haweswater Aqueduct, which has served people in Lancashire, Cumbria and Greater Manchester for 60 years.

On Monday, Lancaster City Council gave planning permission for a part of the scheme affecting the Lancaster area.

This will involve replacing around 16.7km of the existing aqueduct with a newly constructed section, some 380m underground, and will include the building of a new tunnel reception site at Helks Brow at Wray, near Lancaster.

City council planning officers had recommended the scheme be given the green light, with conditions.

Members of the council's planning regulatory committee, a group of elected councillors, agreed with them following a unanimous vote at a meeting at Morecambe Town Hall.

Councillor Peter Yates described the scheme by water company United Utilities as "a massively important project".

The Haweswater Aqueduct pipeline upgrade came about after engineers "identified areas of concern that posed a potential future risk to both water quality and supply", said United Utilities.

The company said that "independently verified research has clearly indicated that the preferred solution for customers and stakeholders is the replacement of all six tunnel sections along the length of the aqueduct".

The full plan for the Lancaster area is for "a new valve house building within fenced compound with permanent vehicular access provision and an area of proposed ground raising for landscaping, with the installation of a tunnel shaft and an open cut connection area within a temporary construction compound, to include site accesses, storage areas, plant and machinery, and drainage infrastructure, and a temporary satellite park and ride facility with vehicle marshalling area, a temporary residents' parking area; and a series of local highway works".

A new tunnel will be built connecting the aqueduct from Newton-in Bowland in the Ribble Valley to the existing Lower Houses aqueduct pumping station, around 4km to the south-east of Wray village underneath Croasdale Fell and through the heart of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The temporary works near Wray will be go on for around five years, currently expected to be from 2024 until 2029, so the site would be ready to await the arrival and subsequent removal of the tunnel boring machine.

A council report said: "During those five years it is anticipated that there would be both periods of activity and relative inactivity on the Lower Houses site with around two and a half years of overall construction related activity in total being necessary.

"Once the construction works have been completed the temporary working areas will be subject to an agreed landscape and habitat restoration schemes.

"To allow for the essential ‘very heavy’ machinery and materials to access the Lower Houses Compound there will be certain periods when local roads, including Main Street in the centre of Wray village, will need to be subject to planned road closures and other related traffic management arrangements.

"It is anticipated that such extreme measures will only be potentially intermittently required during 18 weeks of the proposed construction programme with an associated enhanced facility for displaced residents parking to be provided off Main Street (at the Bridge House Tea Rooms).

"To enable safe use of the local roads and access to the Lower Houses Compound, via all of the intended prescribed routes, it will also be necessary for a series of targeted local road improvements to be made."

The council had received objections to the scheme from 14 people and three parish councils - Wray with Botton, Hornby with Farleton and Wennington - mainly due to concerns over the build-up of traffic during the building works.

There were also some concerns raised by councillors during the meeting.

Councillor Robert Redfern asked: "Who's going to pay for all this?

"There are a lot of customers who can't pay their water rates as it is now."

Councillors were also told that there would be "strong traffic management restrictions" and that the scheme would not be fully approved until full sign-off had been received from County Highways.

In moving the recommendation to agree planning permission, Councillor Keith Budden said: "I'm now more reassured about the management of the scheme."

More details on the scheme can be found here.