After a lengthy delay, work looks likely to start on a water pipeline to boost supplies to other parts of the country.
Anglian Water says that rapidly rising costs, the war in Ukraine and very wet conditions all contributed to the major infrastructure project being halted earlier this year.
It had been part of the Strategic Pipe Alliance (SPA)programme which had aimed to shift 265 million litres of water from northern Lincolnshire, through Norfolk and Suffolk.
“Anglian Water’s region is the driest in the UK and has a rapidly-growing population. Without our new drinking water grid, demand for water will outstrip supply, meaning the east of England could run out of water as soon as 2030,” the company’s website says.
The pipeline starts at Elsham and runs 52km to Lincoln, 34km from there to Grantham and a 90km stretch to Bexwell, near Downham Market in Norfolk. A further 71km will go to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk and another 69km to Colchester in Essex.
But work ground to a halt earlier this year.
“There have been many complexities for large infrastructure projects in he last five years, which have all contributed to a revised project for SPA. These have included delays securing planning permission across multiple planning authorities, environmental considerations and, rightfully, maintaining our environmental obligations,” says an update.
“Supply chain issues, largely due to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, and most recently, the wettest winter on record from 2023 to 2024.”
The section from north Lincolnshire to Bexwell is now likely to be completed in the summer of 2026.
The project came to a halt after 130km of the pipeline was already in the ground but the construction has had to be re-phased.
“We have experienced unprecedented weather conditions with ten extreme storms since September 2023,” said the company.
Describing the pipeline as ‘one of Europe’s biggest environmental projects and the most important in Anglian Water’s history,’ the company says the importance of the project cannot be under estimated.
“Without our new drinking water grid, demand for water will outstrip supply.”
The delay became apparent in July this year when work at multiple sites along the route stopped.
Anglian Water had said it would contact local councils in August with an updated timetable, but it only came out this week.
It had originally said that the pipeline, announced in 2019, would be completed by the end of next year.
