Leading wet civil engineering firm Land & Water has been awarded a place on the framework contract for the Thames Water River CP0033 Restoration and associated works.
This groundbreaking project will see the implementation of river restoration and fish passage, improving available habitats and resilience within rivers. Land & Water will develop small and large scale solutions to improve the waterways, mitigate the impact on the environment and enable Thames Water to meet regulatory requirements as part of the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP).
As part of the overhaul and improvement of the waterways, work will include weir removal or modifications, channel bed re-profiling, riverbank re-profiling and replacing banks with softer, natural options. Barriers to fish passage will also be overcome, with pass channels and other solutions such as rock ramps and in-channel gravel (to allow fish to lay their eggs).
Having successfully worked on other environmentally sensitive sites, Land & Water is an expert at implementing ‘soft’ nature-based engineering solutions and is experienced in dealing with regulators and local communities. It has previously restored hundreds of miles of waterways throughout the UK for the Canal & River Trust, building solid working relationships with the Environment Agency, Natural England, land owners and local stakeholders.
Fiona Moore, Divisional Business Manager, said: “We’re very excited to bring our wealth of experience to developing these projects over the coming years.
“The result will be a transformation and improvement of the Thames Waterways, reducing the impact on the environment and meeting its obligations under the Water Framework Directive.
“As custodians of the environment, it also ensures that we are safeguarding habitat for the flora and fauna for years to come.”
Thames Water is the UK’s largest Water and Wastewater services provider, serving 15 million customers, supplying more than 2.6 billion litres of drinking water on average, per day to 9 million drinking water customers and recycling waste from 15 million people safely back to the environment. A key driver for the river restoration programme is to mitigate the impact from abstractions. However, the complexity of river systems means that reducing abstraction alone may not address all of the pressures in the impacted area, and therefore there needs to be improvements throughout the river environment.
The scale of the framework will see the works varying from small local projects which can be delivered manually and with minimal mechanical input, through to larger scale schemes.