£125m water pipeline scheme to link Liverpool with Manchester

Jun 18 2008 by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Daily Post

WATER giant United Utilities (UU) are planning a 33-mile pipeline linking Liverpool and Greater Manchester.

The company is in talks with more than 200 landowners and the eight councils along the proposed route.

The £125m scheme will be one of the biggest engineering projects the water company has ever attempted, linking Prescot reservoir in Merseyside with Woodgate Hill reservoir in Bury, Greater Manchester.

Ian McAulay, UU’s managing director of capital programmes, said: “Pipelines like this are the motorways of the water supply network and this will be one of the biggest engineering projects we have ever undertaken.

“It is all part of our long-term plan to make sure we keep reliable water supplies on tap for our seven million customers in the North West.

“The engineering challenges are big but the project is vital to give us more flexibility in the future during times of drought or when we need to carry out maintenance on other major aqueducts in the region. For this reason it is important that we start construction soon.”

Merseyside is mostly fed with water from North Wales, while the Lake District’s water is channelled into Greater Manchester.

But the new pipeline will allow UU to transfer water between the two conurbations in either direction.

The 1.5 metre diameter pipeline will be able to carry 100m litres of water a day.

Engineers will need to build 15 separate tunnels along the pipeline route to cross obstacles including the M6, M61, M66, River Irwell, River Roch and the West Coast railway line.

UU will use special tunnelling machines that work at depths of up to 20m.

The North West’s oldest aqueduct is the Longdendale Aqueduct, completed in 1851, which carries water from the south Pennines into Manchester.

It is part of a water supply legacy begun by the Victorians who also tapped into water sources in the Lake District, with the 1894 Thirlmere Aqueduct, and North Wales, with the Vyrnwy Aqueduct, built in 1891.

Mr McAulay added: “We inherited a marvellous water supply network from our Victorian predecessors and over the decades since then we have expanded the network.

“The new pipeline will be the latest chapter in the North West’s water supply story and in 100 years our descendants will look back with similar pride.”

UU hopes to start work on the scheme early in 2009, for completion by spring 2011.

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