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Safeguarding the water supplies to the UK’s second city Utilities - Birmingham Resilience Project – Barhale

Saving resource, time, cost, and intangible benefits include imparting knowledge and experience across the project.

Project Overview

In the late 1880s, Sir Thomas Martineau initiated one of the great feats of Victorian municipal engineering, the Elan Valley Reservoirs and aqueduct to Birmingham. The Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) charts a course from the mountains of mid-Wales through to Frankley WTW on the southwestern edge of Birmingham. The system functions entirely by gravity and, in its two-day journey along the 73 miles of tunnels, conduits and siphons forming the aqueduct, water drops some 52m before reaching Frankley Reservoir. At £242m, the Birmingham Resilience Project was not only the largest project in Severn Trent’s capital programme but one of the most ambitious projects the company has undertaken. Ainscough worked with Barhale on the installation of 25km of new pipeline from a new river intake in Lickhill, near Stourport to the existing Frankley, Severn Trent water treatment works in Birmingham. The purpose of the pipeline was to help solve ever-growing Birmingham’s reliance on just one water supply. The Birmingham Resilience Project allowed Severn Trent Water to safeguard this important asset and secure another century of service.

Further Details

Barhale is one of the largest privately-owned civil engineering and infrastructure specialists UK-wide, across the water, transport, built environment, and energy sectors. Barhale selected Ainscough as crane supplier based on the scale and service requirements of such a large geographic site. Commissioning up to five cranes a day from 40 to 150 tonne across such a large site brought several logistical challenges but working in close partnership helped the team overcome them. Our collaborative approach through early design involvement, engineering expertise, and integrated delivery ensures we were able to complete complex projects to exacting time, cost and quality standards, safely and sustainably. Through regular, structured communication between sales and the depot, site contacts and Barhale’s procurement team, ensured delivery of the right crane to the right part of the site safely 7 days a week; saving r resources, time, cost, and intangible benefits include imparting knowledge and experience across the project.

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