The Birmingham Resilience Project forms part of Severn Trent Water’s AMP 6 capital programme. It is not only the largest of their projects at an overall cost of over £300M, but also their most ambitious. The project will be one of the biggest engineering challenges Severn Trent Water have ever taken on.

For over a century, most of Birmingham’s water has flowed down the Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) from reservoirs in the Welsh hills. The aqueduct is over a hundred years old and needs maintenance to keep it in service, which means draining it for extended periods. The Birmingham Resilience Project will provide an alternative source of water during those maintenance periods and will be used for up to 50 days every other year. It will also provide a solution in the event of an emergency scenario such as an unplanned shutdown of the EVA. The water would be transferred via a 25 kilometre long pipeline from a new river intake at Lickhill, just north of Stourport, to Frankley Water Treatment Works in Birmingham, which is itself being upgraded to accommodate the new source of water.

Barhale’s “Raw Water” contract, which includes the 25 kilometre long pipeline and intake pumping station, forms a key part of the project. This award announcement follows a rigorous competitive process in which Barhale were able to successfully demonstrate innovation and efficiencies to win the project. Whilst the overall project will run until March 2020, Barhale’s section of the work will be completed by October 2018 in advance of any interface works that are required with the separate “Treated Water” contract to be let at Frankley.

The contract was signed at Severn Trent’s head office with the senior leaders from both companies.

Dennis Curran, Barhale’s Company Chairman said:

“Barhale is extremely proud of the award of this contract. We will work closely with Severn Trent Water to ensure the goal of ‘Investing efficiently for our customers and leaving a legacy to be proud of’ is achieved on the Birmingham Resilience Project.”

Liv Garfield, CEO, Severn Trent, said:

“This project is all about securing the fantastic legacy the Victorians left us in the Elan Valley Aqueduct and creating a more resilient water supply for 1.2 million of our customers in and around Birmingham. We aim to invest efficiently so we can continue to deliver the lowest household water bills in England & Wales and we’re delighted to be working with Barhale to help us achieve that”