West Cumbria update

Since we started construction in 2017 – things are really starting to come together!  

We’ve been out and about to capture just how things are progressing on our plans to provide a more resilient and sustainable water supply for our customers in West Cumbria.

It’s been a busy time so far, and our site teams are well underway laying pipe and building the new water treatment works at Williamsgate. We're making really good progress constructing our new underground service reservoirs and pumping station.  

The weather has sometimes made things more challenging (it does rain quite a bit!), but the drier summer period helped the teams to increase the average length of pipe being laid each week and there is over 68km of pipe in the ground.

We've now completed all of the tunnel sections as part of the project (PDF78KB opens in a new window).  The specialist tunnel boring machines, 'Druzella' and 'Digorry', were named by children from St Herbert's school in Keswick. At 2.8 metres tall, with 40 cutting teeth and weighing in at 54 tonnes the largest machine 'Digorry' completed the 1.25km tunnel in the Castlerigg area in 15 weeks!