Good Morning it's been several months since we demobilised the site. We mentioned that the verge between Prince of Wales Close and Prince Edward Road had been top soiled and seeded on our last update. Due to the time of year it was complete, it was unlikely it would fully establish. This has been monitored over time, and we are planning to return to re-seed the area next week.

If you have any questions, please comment below.

Thanks

Sarah

The good news is we’ve completed our drainage and highway reinstatement work on Prince of Wales Close and West Avenue and removed our temporary compound from Temple Park. The flood risk reduction work has included:

• The construction of an 80m³ surface water storage tank within Prince of Wales Close verge;
• Introduction of a short section of upsized sewer within West Avenue;
• The installation of additional non return valves which restrict the flow of wastewater and storm water back towards homes;
• And limited surface water separation within Prince of Wales Close.

We’ve also added additional topsoil and grass seed along the wide verge between Prince of Wales Close and Prince Edward Road but given the time of year, it’s unlikely that the grass will fully establish before the winter period. We have arranged to monitor this and plan to return in early Spring 2021 to re-seed the area again, as necessary.

We appreciate that our work has been disruptive and I really would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patience and cooperation.

Good afternoon all, it took a little longer than expected due to adverse weather conditions, but we can now say that West Avenue has now fully reopened.

Following on later this week, the traffic management will be removed from Prince of Wales Close.

We began work on the surface water separation, hand digging in the footpath at Prince of Wales close. All being well, we should be away from site by the end of October. We will keep you up to date with our progress over the coming weeks.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at sarahjayne.vickers@jnbentley.co.uk or alternatively us the 'contact us' link at the top of this page.

Thanks                                                  

Sarah

Good afternoon,

we have successfully installed and backfilled the storage tank within the grass verge at Prince of Wales Close. 

We mentioned in our last update, work on West Avenue was slightly delayed, we anticipate further delays partly due to locating an unexpected water main, which needed diverting to allow us to progress with our essential work. On top of this last week we uncovered a gas main which needed some attention from Northern Gas Networks, not to mentioned storm Francis last week. Taking all these factors into consideration, we are anticipating the road closure being extended into the back end of September and hope the road will reopen no later than the 25^th September 2020.

We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you, if you need to discuss this please don’t hesitate to contact me via email SarahJayne.Vickers@JNBentley.co.uk or alternatively us the 'contact us' link at the top of this page.

Thanks

Sarah

Good morning all, the team and I would like to thank you for your continued patience and understanding while we carry out these essential works.

Work on the underground surface water storage tank in the verge of Prince of Wales Close is progressing well and over the next few days you will see a large number of storage ‘crates’ being installed in the large excavation we have open. These ‘crates’ will be wrapped in a waterproof membrane which will then be welded to form a watertight seal. Once these are installed, we will begin to backfill above the storage tank and subsequently complete the tie in drainage either end of the tank. I have added a few pictures showing the excavations.

Unfortunately, on West Ave, we located a water main within our excavations that required localised diversions to allow us to continue with our drainage work. Please accept our apology for the short disruption to the water supply while we completed these diversions. With the water mains now diverted, we are continuing with our planned drainage work, however, due to the unexpected and unplanned nature of the water main diversions, this has had an impact on our progress. We are currently one week behind on our programme and while we will look to make up time as we progress, at this stage, we now expect to be complete and have the road re-opened by Friday 4th September.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at SarahJayne.Vickers@JNBentley.co.uk or alternatively us the 'contact us' link at the top of this page.

Thanks

Sarah 

Good Afternoon,

Following on from Pauls last update, I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce you to our Mott MacDonald Bentley team.

I am Sarah Jayne Vickers, Customer Liaison Officer and I will take care of all customer enquiries during the project and you will notice I will be blogging a lot so please feel free to contact me either via the portal or the "Contact Us", I will be out and about as well so please come along and say hello if you see me.

Lee Buchanan is our Contract Manager who will managing the project, then we have Michael Nelson our Site Manager who will manage the day to day operations who will be assisted by Marc Bell the Engineer. Lee, Michael and Marc have many years of experience in the construction industry and we all have worked on various projects together with Northumbrian Water.

I have included our mug shots below for you to put faces to names.

We are starting on site Monday 13th July, we will be setting up our site compound in temple park and from Wednesday onwards setting up the 2-way lights and compound in the verge of Prince of Wales Close.

We will provide you with regular updates throughout, if in the meantime, you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Finally, I would just like to thank you for your support so far and say the team and I are looking forward to working in your community.

Enjoy your weekend!

Good afternoon,

It’s come to our attention that the customer letter some of you have received has a blank plan attached. Please accept our apologies, we’re in touch with our printers and will be re-sending a further letter and revised plan out as soon as possible.

In the meantime, you can access the customer plan vian the ‘Planned Work’ tab above and clicking the link on the right hand side panel.

Kind regards

Important update on planned work in your area

We had highlighted in earlier correspondence the risk that our economic regulator, Ofwat, would not allow us the funding to complete the larger Harton and the Nook flood protection scheme. As things stand that is the case, although Ofwat’s determintation on our plan is now being reviewed by the Competition and Markets Authority. We are therefore not in position to commit to the larger scheme at this moment in time. We have however committed to completing localised upgrades to our sewer network to reduce the risk of repeat flooding in the medium term.

Our experienced partner, Mott MacDonald Bentley, will be carrying out this work on our behalf. This will include the construction of a surface water storage tank within the verge of Prince of Wales Close, as well as the upsizing of sewers within West Avenue. Work will begin on Monday 13 July 2020 and we expect to be substantially complete by Friday 25 September 2020.

Traffic management will be necessary while we complete our drainage improvement work. A temporary closure will be in place at the bottom of West Avenue from 20^th July 2020 for up to 5 weeks and diversion routes will be signed. The temporary closure will prevent access to individual driveways and on street parking for a small number of residents. If you are going to be directly affected by our work, our site team will contact you in advance.

Elsewhere, two way temporary traffic lights will be in place on Prince of Wales Close at the junction of West Avenue to control vehicular access to the cul-de-sac.

Please be assured that we are working closely with our partners to do all that we can to minimise any disruption to you and your community throughout the work. Typical working hours will be Monday to Saturday, between 8.00am and 5.00pm.

Good morning,

As part of agreeing our Business Plan for the period 2020-25 with our economic regulator, Ofwat, we are in discussions with them about investment in a number of schemes to improve our region’s resilience to factors such as climate change and urban creep, with regard to future flooding risk.

Our future plans include the proposed Harton and The Nook flood risk management and reduction project and you will know from past updates, we had expected to start work on this £8.5m investment to reduce the risk of flooding in the area, benefiting hundreds of residents, in the first quarter of 2020. The project would include new and upgraded sewers, storage tanks, and opportunities within Cleadon Park to intercept and slow down surface water runoff.

Based on the draft determination we have received from Ofwat and discussions with them to date, there is a significant risk that Ofwat will not allow us the funding to deliver our risk reduction programme.

With this in mind, we cannot currently commit to the Harton and The Nook scheme. We expect Ofwat to finalise funding details in December, at which point we will have a clearer picture about the future of this scheme and we will, of course, update you.. In the meantime, it is our intention to work with customers most directly affected to explore and implement property level protection measures, where possible and where they can be most effective.

We appreciate this news is disappointing, but we would like to assure you that we are working with partners to petition for a positive outcome. We know that our customers want us to invest more in ensuring our network is resilient for the future, and we want to deliver that for them.

Paul Davison

Project Manager

Good Afternoon,

Just following on from Paul's update MMB need to conduct some investigations in advance of any future potentional work.

With that in mind on Sunday 10th February we will be closing a lane at the mini roundabout (opposite Barclays) by "The Nook" shops so we can conduct a pipe survey. (0800hrs - 16.30hrs) We will return Monday 11th February where we will need to again work along "The Nook" but this time at four separate locations. We will be coring three areas all in the lay-bys and one tri-hole, this is to establish the ground conditions and to locate any utility supplies so we are informed of all relevant information needed for any proposed work. (0600hrs-16.30hrs, a little earlier than normal as we need to utilise the lay-bys)

If you are out and about over the above two days please be that little more vigiliant, we expect all the work to be complete Monday and back to normal on Tuesday.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me via the portal or use the "contact us" button at the top of the project page.

Thank you in advance for your patience.