Morning All - Time for what may well be the final update from me on this project.

In the past few weeks, we have completed construction of the underground valve chamber and installed all the surface covers and concrete mowing strips. The basic landscaping and topsoiling has been completed and clearing site commenced.

On the Mechanical & Electrical side, the kiosk is complete, and all the cabling, control and instrumentation is in place and ready for use.

Both strategic water mains are now back in operation and delivering clean drinking water to Carrhill Service Reservoir.

This week we are removing the concrete slab we installed in the footpath at the park gates to allow us to drive heavy vehicles into the park without damage to the footpath or services underneath. This had necessitated the diversion of pedestrians to the other footpath whilst we carry out the works. We should have the footpath reinstated in tarmac (bitmac) by the end of the week.

Commissioning of the works should also be completed this week to bring the site into full operation.

With a bit of luck, all cabins, fencing, materials, and plant will be removed from the park by the end of the week and the whole area reopened to the public.

Unfortunately, due to the timing of completion and the associated weather at this time of year, it is unlikely that the final dressing and grass seeding of the work area will be possible, so there will be a brief return visit in the spring to complete that works. Please be assured that the bare soil is temporary, and the area will be fully grassed.

There will also be a short visit to install an antenna once planning permission has been finalised, possibly early in the new year.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their patience and understanding on what has been at times a challenging contract. We have prevented access to part of your park and whilst we have always endeavoured to keep noise and disturbance to a minimum, it can’t have always been easy, especially for those nearby and even with homes overlooking the works, so we are very grateful for your tolerance.

Thanks again,

Dave Eden

Site Agent

Afternoon everyone,

It’s been a while since my last update so there are a few things to tell:

The valve chamber is now structurally complete after we poured the missing sections of wall around the 18” main and then lifted the 17tonne cover slab into place with a crane on the 6^th October which a few of you will have seen. The lift when very smoothly despite the tight access and working room for such a large lift.

The electrical install is under way and the new kiosk is in position. These will run the flow meter and Electrically Operated Valves on the strategic water mains and allow NWG to control them remotely. We are currently intending to commission this early November

Reinstatement works have begun where we have removed part of our access road and shrunk the perimeter of our work area, allowing access to the play park again.

We are currently setting all our chamber cover to height so we can concrete them in position. Once completed this will allow us to remove the remaining stone from site and reinstate the topsoil ready for cultivation and seeding.

There still remain a few items such as ladders into the valve chamber, re-installing the gate at the main entrance and resurfacing the footpath outside the gate but all the major works except the electrical commissioning are complete and we are looking at the home stretch.

Thanks for reading

Dave

Good afternoon, 

Just a reminder to residents that we will have two generator's running overnight this evening whilst operations are being carried out on the water network. These are located on St Cuthberts Road and Old Durham Road. 

An operative will be in attendance to monitor the noise levels whilst the work is taking place. 

There will be minimal impact to residents during this work. 

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Thank you 

Becky

Good Morning all, 

I just wanted to provide residents with a quick update regarding some work that the site team will be carrying out tomorrow and into Friday. 

They will be required to carry out essential work on the water network overnight on Thursday 30th September. This work will involve two generator's being in operation from 09:00 on Thursday 30th September through to 17:00 on Friday 1st October. These will be located on St Cutherbert's Road and Old Durham Road, Gateshead. An operative will be in attendance to monitor the noise levels whilst the operations are taking place. 

There will be minimal disruption to residents during this time. 

If you have any further queries relating to this section of work, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Thank you 

Becky 

Morning all,

Work is continuing at Pipeline Management in Windmill Hills park, but we are starting to reach the pointy end.

The pipework alterations have all been carried out the larger of the two water mains, including installation of the 600mm diameter Electrically Operated Valve (EOV), and that is now back in service.

The flow control chamber is about 75% complete. We’ve left a section out to let us carry out the alterations on the second water main and we have the precast concrete cover slab to go on at the end of this month.

We are currently carrying out some ductworks to allow the M&E installation to start in the next 2 weeks and we’re working with NWG to isolate and drain the second main so we can carry out those adjustments mentioned above next week.

Thanks

Dave

Afternoon all, time for a somewhat belated update.

As mentioned in the previous update we have drained the 27” main and made the alterations needed to the pipework. Having completed that we needed to change our excavation and shoring to allow us to construct a new valve chamber around both water mains. As the excavation is mostly through rock this is more difficult and complicated than might normally be expected. Apologies for the noise this has caused over the period as we broke out the necessary rock.

The excavation is now completed, shored out and a layer of blinding concrete in place to give us a flat surface to work off. We are currently installing the steel reinforcement to the base of the chamber and looking to pour the first bit of structural concrete on Friday.

The next few of weeks will see us continue with the valve chamber construction and also make alterations to the 18” mains pipework before completing the valve chamber walls.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Dave

Afternoon all,

Just a few words to keep you up to date on the works in Windmill Hills Park.

The cross-connection pipework has been completed including chlorination, bacteriological samples and final connections and has been brought into service this morning. This allows a section of the 27" main to be taken out of service without interrupting supply to Carrhill reservoir. It is also an asset for NWG moving forward, allowing them extra flexibility on the network.

NWG will start isolating and draining the 27" main tomorrow which is expected to take most of the day. I'm sure you can appreciate around 130m of 27" diameter water main represents a lot of water: something in the region of 45m3 or 45,000 litres. Once this process is complete, we can finish excavating the section of main we need to remove, look to cut it out early next week and then start installing the new pipework.

Thanks for reading

Dave

Morning all,

Work is proceeding well on pipeline management in Windmill Hills Park.

We have completed laying the pipework for the cross connection between the two strategic mains and we’re now carrying out the commissioning process. This involves pressure testing the pipework to ensure there are no leaks, chlorinating to deal with any nasties that may have gotten into the pipes during manufacture or pipelaying and finally taking bacteriological samples to ensure the main and water inside is suitable for human consumption. Once all these process are complete, the final connections to both mains can be completed and the cross connection brought into service.

This will mark the end of the enabling works and will allow the mains to be taken out of service, one at a time, without interruption to your water supply.

The next major task after some backfilling and site housekeeping will be to isolate the larger of the two mains to enable the required alteration to its pipework.

I’ve attached some photos below for those interested. Thanks for reading

Dave.

Hi everyone, time for another update on our site in Windmill Hills park.

We finished digging out for the thrust restraint block around the mains. This has been a difficult process because the ground is largely sandstone and needed breaking out, but care had to be taken to avoid disturbing the mains with lots of vibration. There are also the rock anchors which will be cast into the block which had to be dug around making the work more difficult still. We’ve managed to get around these issues by hard work and handheld breakers.

That should be the end of the noise for the time being.

We’re now on with the steel-fixing, which is making the reinforcement cage that will sit inside the concrete block. We’ll get that finished in the next few days and hope to pour concrete at the back end of the week.

In the meantime the pipelaying gang have been welding some of the sections of polyethylene pipes together on the surface in advance of completing cross connection pipework between the two mains.

Thanks All

Dave

Afternoon All,

Work is progressing on Pipeline Management in the park at Windmill Hills.

The issues we have had getting the correct foundations in place have been solved and the rock anchor were installed on the weekend of the Mayday Bank Holiday. Sorry for any disruption that caused, I hope it wasn’t too noisy.

We have completed half of the cross-connection pipework between the two large water mains which will allow us to maintain your water supplies whilst we work on one main at a time.

We are now concentrating on the concrete thrust restraint which will tie into the rock anchors and hold a large valve in place while we make changes to the mains. Excavation and installation of ground support for the thrust restraint in on going. This is slow and hard work as we are digging through stone and it required a lot of breaking out by hand, but our operatives are sticking at it. We hope to install the reinforcement and formwork next week to allow us to pour concrete.

This all may sound like a lot of work to install some new valves and flow meters on the mains, but these are very large strategic water mains at high pressure and there are very large forces involved.

Thanks all for now, thanks for reading

Dave Eden