Thames Tunnel – From Lessons to Planning Full Report
London’s sewage treatment works and sewers are overloaded. This results in 39 million tonnes of raw sewage typically being discharged annually into the River Thames and puts the UK Government in breach of European legislation. The solution is the London Tideway Improvements which comprise three elements. Work has commenced on the first two namely improvements to various existing treatments works together with the construction of the 7km £635m Lee Tunnel which commenced in September 2010. The third and largest element of the solution is rapidly drawing close to gaining its “go ahead”. If successful this will result in the construction of a 22km £3.6bn tunnel 7.2m internal diameter mostly following the route of the River Thames through London from Hammersmith to Limehouse and then to Abbey Mills at Stratford.
The 2nd phase of a public consultation process for the Thames Tunnel will commence in early November 2011 and will result in a Development Consent Order application in late 2012. Gaining permission for a scheme of this magnitude in London’s urban environment will be an immense test of the efficiency and fairness of UK’s evolving planning processes involving the transition from the Infrastructure Planning Commission to the new Major Infrastructure Planning Unit.
The seminar will hear of the history of the planning and creation by Sir Joseph Balzagette of the existing Victorian sewerage infrastructure and the funding challenges that London and Parliament faced at the time of the Great Stink of 1858. The urgency to improve on this infrastructure to achieve our current environmental standards will be explained and the role of the Government in enabling the delivery of the Thames Tunnel Project.
Thames Water, UK’s largest water company, will explain the optimisation of the project and the management of the risks of delivering a major project in a regulated industry.”