Flood Relief for homes in Platt Bridge



Learning about the scheme design with UU engineers

I visited the site of a £700,000 investment in flood relief to see how work is progressing on a sewer scheme in Platt Bridge on a cold and wet Friday morning (14th Dec).

I was given a tour of the construction work by United Utilities engineers at the Liverpool Road site.
   
The water company is laying a huge new sewer through the open land at Amberswood to store more water during heavy rain and take the pressure off the main sewer in Liverpool Road.


A section of the new sewer piping
(1.5m in diameter)
 which will store excess rainwater during heavy rainfall

   




United Utilities project coordinator Gareth Jones told me that this scheme is about bringing peace of mind to local families who have had to put up with the misery of sewer flooding. he confirmed that work is progressing well and that this was a good example of how United Utilities were investing the money from customers' water bills to improve services in local communities.  

Work began at the beginning of November and I visited during phase II of the works which is the biggest part of the construction process with the laying of approx 60m of 1.5m diameter sewer pipes to store rainwater following prolonged rainfall.

The tour demonstrated the size of the works that United Utilities are undertaking and because this particular scheme is gravity fed, then there is no need for complex electrical or engineering solutions, which means that once complete ongoing maintenance is kept to a minimum providing value for money.

The Makerfield constituency has suffered the misery of flooding too often in the past decade so I warmly welcome schemes of this type which will take the blight of homes in this area.