London's New Super Sewer: Unveiling the Advancements and Capabilities of Thames Tideway
**"Bleh, the River Thames," Said Sadiq Khan about the sewage horror show last year. But it wasn't just the mayor of London that was grossed out.
Fast forward a few months, and the Oxford-Cambridge boat race in April had a bout of E Coli sweeping through some of the competitors. Guess who got the blame? You got it – the UK's biggest water supplier, Thames Water. They're drowning in financial woes, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy earlier this year.
Now, you might think it'd be cruel to pile on more shit to this struggling utility. But hey, Thames Water did manage to help cook up a potential solution to London's own messy problem.
Meet the £4.5bn, 25km Thames Tideway Tunnel, also known as the "Super Sewer." After over a decade of work, His Majesty King Charles III finally opened it last week.
This project is London's largest sewer upgrade since its construction by John Bazalgette following the "Great Stink" of 1858. Its goal? To get Londoners back in the river, cleaning it up, and having more people engage with it.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor, seems to be all for that – he recently proposed plans to make London's rivers swimmable within a decade. So far, the super sewer seems to be doing its job, with around 6.8m cubic meters of sewage diverted from the River Thames since its launch, which is almost like 2800 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of sewage avoided.
For Roger Bailey, the project's chief technical officer, the value of this feat is unquestionable. Despite London's Victorian-era sewers being a marvel of engineering, they couldn't handle severe weather, with just 2mm of rainfall causing overflows in certain areas. The super sewer aims to suck out sewage from 34 of the most polluting combined overflows along the river.
Of course, like all show-stopping projects, the Thames Tideway Tunnel isn't without its critics. The big question is, is it worth the cost to the average Joe? There were initial concerns that a more modest urban drainage solution or upgrading the existing infrastructure would have served the River Thames better.
However, Tideway's avant-garde private financing model is being hailed by the industry, and even suggested as an option for future projects like the £9bn Lower Thames Crossing.
The cost has risen from an initial estimate of £1.7bn in 2005 prices to over £4bn, but Chris Morgan, a senior investment director at Amber Infrastructure, argues that the private sector was able to price the asset more reasonably thanks to a backstop from the government against cost overruns.
Despite the controversy, the Super Sewer is a marvel of engineering, and as decades of work prove, sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet and clean up someone else's mess.
So, is Thames Water the right company to run it? Did billpayers get taken for a ride? Well, that's a whole other stinky story."
Enrichment Data:- Who Pays for the Thames Tideway Tunnel: The financial burden of the Thames Tideway Tunnel falls on Thames Water customers. The project's funding is sourced from the customers themselves[4]. The project was initially expected to increase average annual wastewater bills by £20 to £25 by the mid-2020s, though these figures were previously estimated to be higher[4].- Value for Money Debate: Arguments for the value of the Thames Tideway Tunnel include environmental benefits and addressing a critical need for London's wastewater management. Criticisms involve the cost to customers, Thames Water's financial practices, and the project's funding model[4][5].- Thames Water's Financial Struggles: Thames Water, the company responsible for the Thames Tideway Tunnel, has been facing financial woes, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy earlier in the year[2].
- The cost of the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a 25km long sewer upgrade project in London, is largely borne by Thames Water customers.
- A topic of debate is the value for money of the Thames Tideway Tunnel, with some arguing for its environmental benefits and addressing a critical need for London's wastewater management, while others criticize the cost to customers and question Thames Water's financial practices.
- Thames Water, the company responsible for the Thames Tideway Tunnel, has been struggling financially, having narrowly avoided bankruptcy earlier in the year.
- The £9bn Lower Thames Crossing, a potential future project, is being suggested to adopt the avant-garde private financing model used in the Thames Tideway Tunnel by the industry.
