WATER NETWORK IMPROVEMENT

Project Pipeline: County Durham and Tees Valley

This work will boost the resilience of supply links between our reservoirs and treatment works in Teesdale, and parts of central and southern County Durham. Our investment will increase reliability, reduce leakage and provide high quality drinking water for customers for decades to come. This phase of the project - Phase 1 - will construct a new replacement pipeline from Lartington Water Treatment Works to Gainford and a new strategic transfer main between Whorley Hill SR and Shildon SR.

Update by Karen Alexander

Good morning

 

Pipelaying on a £155m project to upgrade the water network across parts of the North East is gathering pace around Barnard Castle. Northumbrian Water’s Project Pipeline: County Durham and Tees Valley will see a total of 57km of new water mains laid from Lartington to Gainford, and across to Shildon and Long Newton, securing reliable and resilient water supplies for around 200,000 customers.

 

For the next stage of this major project, Northumbrian Water and its construction partner, Farrans Construction, will need to temporarily close a section of the B6278, north of Barnard Castle, during the Easter Holidays.

 

The closure will be from the junction with Dent Gate Lane from Tuesday 2 April to Friday 12 April 2024 to allow a pipe to be laid across the B-road as part of the overall pipeline. A diversion route, approved by the Council and designed to give safe options for motorists to use roads of the same size or larger, will be signposted, with advance notice signage being put in place to warn regular road users.

 

Road closure notices and diversion signs will be in place on the roadside to alert road users two weeks ahead of the closure date. We advise road users to allow additional time for any journeys you will be planning that involve the B6278 during this period.

 

For the period of the closure, we have consulted with our partners in Durham County Council and National Highways and arranged an official diversion route, as follows:

 

  • To travel north out of Barnard Castle, drivers are asked to use the A688 towards Staindrop, then take the B6279 (Moor Road) heading west towards Eggleston.

 

  • To travel south into Barnard Castle, drivers are asked to use the B6279 heading east out of Eggleston to Staindrop, then take the A688 heading west to Barnard Castle.

 

Typical working hours will be between 7.30am – 6.00pm, Monday to Friday and 8.00am – 2.00pm on a Saturday however, we may work outside those times in order to speed up completion.

 

We understand closures like this are an inconvenience to you, so we will be working hard to finish this work as quickly and safely as possible. As long as we do not encounter any unexpected problems, we may be able to reopen the B6278 earlier than Friday 12 April 2024.

 

If you need a little extra help during the work, please let us know as soon as possible by calling the team on 0345 717 1100.

 

If you’d like to speak to a member of our Project Team, you can telephone our customer contact centre on 0345 717 1100, tweet us @nwater_care or contact us via our community portal. Whichever way is best, we’d really like to hear from you.

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their patience as this work continues.

 

Kind regards

Karen Alexander

Farrans’ Community Business Partner

 

 

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