NANTWICH Lake car park will be closed again next week while Severn Trent Water tunnel under the River Weaver at as part of a project to make water supplies more secure for 27,000 homes.

Dave Kiernan, project engineer for the company explained: “We have a very large pipe that that takes water from boreholes in Peckforton to Coopers Green reservoir in North Staffordshire, 27 kilometres away.

“On its route there are several river crossings, where a single pipe crosses over the river on a bridge. If any of these pipes were to leak or burst, it could leave customers without water – as a repair in this situation would be difficult and take some time.

“We’re investing £3.5 million to install new pipes under the River Weaver at Nantwich where there are currently two crossings. With these new pipes in place, if there was a burst, we could quickly reroute water and have supplies back on in no time.”

Work started in February 2014 and so far two deep shafts have been sunk so that a tunnelling machine can be sent under the river. The tunnelling work will start next week, Monday September 8, and will take about six weeks to complete. The new pipe will then be installed through the tunnel and connected to the existing pipe at either end.

The whole project is expected to take until the end of the year and will be carried out by the company’s contract partner, Amey.

Dave added: “We had closed the car park at Nantwich Lake to make it safe for both the local community and our teams while we do the work. We did reopen it throughout the school holidays, but we will need to close it again from next week.

“We’d like to apologise for any inconvenience our work is causing, but we’d like to reassure our customers and the local community that we won’t be here for long, but the security that this work brings will be there for generations to come.”