An ambitious project to tunnel under the River Weaver will close Nantwich Lake car park for another six weeks.
Severn Trent Water will start the £3.5 million tunnel next week to improve the way water is carried from Peckforton to Coopers Green reservoir in North Staffordshire.
It will once again mean the closure of the busy lake car park off Shrewbridge Road for safety reasons while the work is completed.
Water is currently transported over the river by a single pipe on a bridge at two crossing points on its 27-kilometre journey.
But bosses fear a burst or damage could leave thousands without water.
Dave Kiernan, project engineer for Severn Trent, said: “We have a very large pipe that takes water from boreholes in Peckforton to Coopers Green reservoir.
“On its route there are several river crossings, where a single pipe crosses over the river on a bridge.
“If any of these pipes were to leak or burst, it could leave customers without water – as a repair in this situation would be difficult and take some time.
“We’re investing £3.5 million to install new pipes under the River Weaver at Nantwich where there are currently two crossings.
“With these new pipes in place, if there was a burst, we could quickly reroute water and have supplies back on in no time.”
Work started in February 2014 and so far two deep shafts have been sunk so that a tunnelling machine can be sent under the river.
The tunnelling work will start on Monday September 8 and will take about six weeks to complete.
The new pipe will then be installed through the tunnel and connected to the existing pipe at either end.
The whole project is expected to take until the end of the year and will be carried out by the company’s contract partner, Amey.
Dave added: “We had closed the car park at Nantwich Lake to make it safe for both the local community and our teams while we do the work.
“We did reopen it throughout the school holidays, but we will need to close it again from next week.
“We’d like to apologise for any inconvenience our work is causing, but we’d like to reassure our customers and the local community that we won’t be here for long, but the security that this work brings will be there for generations to come.”
This is incredible. Civil engineering like this never ceases to amaze me.
I hope theyre going to remove the old unsightly pipes too and replace any of the decidedly dead looking trees around the hole by the lake.