Three rival consortia are waiting to see which of them has won the race to become the preferred bidder for a new tunnelling project linked to Haweswater Reservoir.
As reported by the Tunnelling Portal, Harp Community Connectors, which comprises Acciona, Dragados and Iridium, More Water, which combines FCC Construcción, SNC-Lavalin, FCC Aqualia, Webuild and BeMo Tunnelling, and the Strabag Equitix Consortium, which includes Equitix and Strabag are the trip in the race.
The winner will negotiate with United Utilities on a deal to take forward the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme (HARP), the largest infrastructure project the firm has undertaken since water privatisation. No fewer than six tunnel sections covering more than 50 km of the 128-mile aqueduct will be replaced.
Conveyor installation companies will be required to install conveyor belts to remove debris along various stretches of the aqueduct, some of them in rural areas that may be difficult to access in Cumbria and in rural parts of Lancashire like the Forest of Bowland.
Director of strategic programmes at United Utilities Neil Gillespie said: “This is a significant milestone on our long journey to replace an important part of our water infrastructure. “
He added: “The new aqueduct will create a resilient water supply for our customers in Manchester and the Pennine region for many generations to come.”
Haweswater was the second major project undertaken in what is now the Lake District National Park to turn existing lakes into reservoirs to supply water for Manchester, following the damming and enlargement of Leathes Water and Wythburn Lake to create Thirlmere in the 1890s. It supplies Manchester via a gravity-assisted aqueduct.
The Haweswater dam was constructed in the 1940s to increase supplies. The enlargement of the lake forced the abandonment of the village of Mardale Green, whose ruins can still be seen when water levels are low.
