Work to improve water quality at Bradshaw Brook underway

Jane Wilcock, a founder of the Friends of Harwood and Longsight Park, was the VIP guest at a major operation by United Utilities to improve water quality in Bolton’s Bradshaw Brook.

In acknowledgement of Jane’s sterling efforts to improve the area, United Utilities named the innovative tunnelling machine after her.

“It was a surprise and it will be exciting to see it launched. Having a sewage tunnelling drill named Jane, I feel sure it will be reliable and get the job done,” said Jane.

The 32-tonne machine has been lowered into a launch pit last and will now spend the next 87 days tunnelling a 900m route from Firwood industrial estate toward the arboretum before making a sharp turn back to its final destination in Longsight Park.

When complete, the tunnels will store more than 3,000 cubic meters of storm water – the equivalent of nearly one and a half Olympic size swimming pools. They will play a vital role in improving water quality in Bradshaw Brook, a tributary of the River Irwell, by reducing the number of times that storm overflows operate in heavy rainfall.

Jane said: “The park was very run-down. It was very muddy with seats and a play area in disrepair, so we decided to take action to make repairs to the infrastructure.”

The group was aided by National Lottery grants, government funding and private philanthropy

“Local people complained that raw sewage was going onto the brook, and I saw it myself,” said Jane. “There are sewage pipes at each end of the brook, so it was a double whammy.

“Children were wading in the brook, and people were fishing in it. We discovered that unauthorised spills were not unusual, in fact they were almost the norm, and so we drew attention to the problem. “

As a result of the Friends’ awareness-raising, United Utilities got in contact with Jane to help find a solution.

Chris Borradaile, County Business Leader for wastewater in Greater Manchester at United Utilities, said: “Jane’s been heavily involved and she’s been at the heart of our community engagement.

“We’re really pleased to be getting underway with this important scheme that will help to improve the water quality in Bradshaw Brook.

“The great thing about this scheme is it also means that access to both the park and arboretum can be maintained while ‘Jane’ is busy tunnelling away deep underground.

“We’re not just focused on this site in Bolton, we’re actually investing nearly £150m across four schemes in the borough and it will really help us to deliver the step change in performance that we know people want to see.”

The pre-made sections of a pipeline will be automatically installed behind ‘Jane’ and the excavated spoil will be crushed and brought to the surface using a suction system. Where possible the excavated earth will be recycled and used to backfill the excavations.

The park and arboretum will both remain open to the public throughout the construction but there will be footpath diversions and alternative access arrangements.

Jane said: “It is pleasing to see this huge infrastructure project being delivered in a way that minimises damage to the park and Bolton's arboretum.

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“Us locals are very pleased that spills into Bradshaw Brook will be much reduced by this project. A few of us have been trained in river health testing and we look forward to seeing an improvement in river larvae and so insects and from there general increased biodiversity, in a brook which already has wild brown trout. The only way is up, or down if you are a tunneller!”

This is one of four projects that United Utilities is currently working on in Bolton to improve river water quality across the borough. The company is upgrading its treatments works in Bolton to increase the capacity of the works, improve the treatment processes at the plant and reduce the time that the storm overflow operates.

There are also schemes at Astley Bridge and Dunscar Bridge.

The project at Astley Bridge will see a 400 cubic meter storage tank built in Haywood’s Hollow.

As well as extra storage, a new screen will be fitted to the overflow to help improve the water quality in Astley Brook.

Whilst at Dunscar Bridge a 200 cubic meter storage meter tank with a screen will be built to help improve the water quality in Eagley Brook and Gale Brook.