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The Edit

FLOODS

Environment Agency launches £30M flood resilience programme for the River Tees

The Environment Agency has launched the Tees Tidelands programme to realign flood defences, restore mudflat and saltmarsh habitats and remove tidal barriers across the Tees Estuary. It features schemes at sites near Greatham, Port Clarence, Portrack, along the River Tees and in rivers such as Lustrum Beck, Ormesby Beck and Billingham Beck.

The projects will use nature-based solutions to reduce flood risk, increase climate change resilience and help nature recover while protecting and enhancing the most important conservation sites.

Work also includes the restoration of Billingham Beck and Lustrum Beck at Stockton-on-Tees.

The Agency said the programme aims to create more than 50ha of mudflats and saltmarsh, and reduce flood risk for homes and businesses.

Proposals for the Tees Tidelands include opening several River Tees tributaries by removing barriers and allowing a “more naturally functioning river system”, according to the Environment Agency. This will facilitate fish migration. Areas of the estuary had been lost when land was built on for industrial complexes.

Several flood defences built to protect those are now old, in poor condition and difficult to maintain.

The new scheme replaces or upgrades defences made from used waste, including slag boulders from the local iron and steel industry. These defences are no longer considered fit for purpose in terms of managing long term flood risk because of predicted climate change-induced sea level rises.

ROADS

£170M M25 junction 28 upgrade reaches two milestones

Contractor Graham has hit two significant milestones on the £170M project to upgrade junction 28 of the M25 motorway. Junction 28 connects the M25 with the A12 in Essex.

At peak times, up to 7,500 vehicles per hour pass through the junction.

National Highways says traffic in the area is expected to increase by around 30% by 2037.

Graham has positioned six, 70m long beams between the M25 and the A12 to support the Grove Bridge road deck. The bridge is part of a new loop road under Maylands Bridge forming part of the new A12 eastbound off-slip, currently under construction. The other milestone involved installing eight precast concrete sections for a culvert under the widened M25 entry slip road.

STRUCTURES

Great Yarmouth bascule bridge opening delayed until next year

Completion of the new £121M bascule bridge in Great Yarmouth has been delayed until 2024. It was originally due to open this autumn.

Herring Bridge will carry traffic over the River Yare, linking the A47 to the port and an enterprise zone, easing congestion in the town centre.

Bam Farrans joint venture is constructing the twin leaf bascule bridge, which will open to allow river traffic through. It is also building new dual carriageway approach roads.

Norfolk County Council and Bam Farrans said the bridge would open for river traffic by the end of the year but would not open to road traffic until sometime next year. The council said a team of commissioning specialists was required to assess the bridge before it could be safely opened.

Further reports suggest wet weather and a renovation scheme at a new junction at a nearby industrial estate are also causing the delay.

RAIL

Bradford station plan

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The Department for Transport (DfT) is providing £400,000 for the new Bradford station masterplan. The station was in the initial Northern Powerhouse Rail proposal but the government scrapped it in November 2021 saying it had “no demonstrable business case”.

Ministers announced a £2bn station upgrade in plans published after prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled Phase 2 of High Speed 2 between the Midlands and the North.

ENERGY

Work on France to Ireland interconnector gets underway

Work on a new interconnector between Ireland and France is underway. The project is promoted by EirGrid, Ireland’s state-owned transmission system operator and its French equivalent, Réseau de Transport d’Electricité.

The Celtic Interconnector is a 700MW subsea power cable linking the Irish and French power grids. The 500km cable will run between the Knockraha substation in County Cork to the La Martyre substation in Finistère. Another 75km of cabling will connect cable landfall and substations at each end.

The Celtic Interconnector is part of the European Union’s Offshore Network Development Plan to develop an integrated energy system for European energy markets. The European Commission is contributing €530.7M (£492.9M) to the project.

The Celtic Interconnector is due for completion in 2026 with integration to the grids expected by 2027.

ROADS

Dartford leader urges Lower Thames Crossing go-ahead

Dartford Borough Council leader Jeremy Kite has urged the government to “get on with” the Lower Thames Crossing to relieve the at-capacity Dartford Crossing.

Project proposals are with the Planning Inspectorate, but in March the government said it was delaying the £9bn road tunnel because of “challenging economic headwinds”. The 4.1km Lower Thames Crossing is expected to be the longest car tunnel in the UK, running under the River Thames between Kent and Essex.

The development consent order (DCO) application for the project was submitted in November last year.

Two years earlier, a DCO application was withdrawn when the Planning Inspectorate demanded more information about construction plans and environmental mitigation.

The project is the flagship of National Highways’ next five-year spending programme.

RAIL

Bristol urged to scrap plans for underground metro system

Bristol City Conservative councillors have called for the city’s mayor to abandon plans for an underground metro system as they are “unrealistic in terms of cost and timescale”.

Bristol’s directly elected Labour mayor Marvin Rees supports a mass transport system that goes underground in the city centre. The Conservative councillors and Labour’s West of England mayor Dan Norris, back an overground system.

Conservative councillors tabled a motion at the meeting of Bristol City Council’s Full Council in mid-November, expressing concern at Rees’ “largely unsubstantiated claim”, made in his last State of the City address, that an overground mass transit system is undeliverable.

The motion also calls for Rees to work more collaboratively with the Combined Authority on this major infrastructure project.

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