Wednesday, 5 July 2023

NWL Reservoir site visit

• Present : Members of Sunderland CC (Harry and Dorothy Trueman, Jimmy Warne), Members of SVRA (Angela Silk, Keith Nairn, Liz Reid, Pauline Cooper) , Members of Gateshead Council. NWL Project team, NWL site management and Keiran Ingram, NWL Director of water.

• Overview ; Richard Johnson NWL project manager gave an overview of the visit, site safety rules, followed by a full site safety briefing, all visitors issued with PPE for the visit.

• Once on site discussions started around the position of the reservoir, status of the current groundworks along with details of the discharge process, location of the discharge pipe, which cuts across the SE corner of the site, across Mount Lane, through the adjacent fields then over the B1288 Springwell Road, all works across the roadways should be tunnelled pipework so there should be no disruption to traffic. The reservoir will be drained twice per year to allow for full inspection and checks. The water that will be discharged will flow directly into the river Don.

• At the NE corner of the site discussions around the on site roadway and operational use were covered, there will be 2 daily visits to site by someone who will take water samples from the reservoir for testing purposes, they will enter the site through the planned entrance gate located at the access road off Mount Road, although the exact position of the road is not yet decided NWL will keep us updated once the planning is finalised. There were discussions around the external fencing which NWL confirmed needed to be in place for security purposes, however there are separate meetings planned with residents of Angel Rise to cover this topic. Issues around the condition the verges up Mount Road and the land adjacent to Broome Court were raised, NWL accept ownership and will look into how they manage the weeds and general conditions in the short term. (Work began on this (06/06). There was a note made regarding the ramp which is in place on the new road into Mount park, this was due to be removed last Friday (30/06) but some delays have meant this is still in place, NWL to advise a new date when the ramp will be removed, this was only in place while soil was transferred to the bonded area in front of Broome court.

• At the North end of the site a general overview of the site progress was delivered, work is currently on plan, there were some complications where the groundworks need to be compacted but overall the site is running to target, now that all the top soil is in place on the bonded area adjacent to Broome Court, all remaining soil/rock/spoils would be transport to the Thompsons quarry, but not through the Village, the trucks carrying the spoil would travel along Mount Lane, turn right into Springwell Road, travel to the A194 then back up Leam Lane entering the Thompson quarry from the North end of the village. 

• NWL confirmed the approximate location of the maintenance kiosk and the on site crane, it was pointed out that this crane would be in place as contingency planning and would not be in use during the normal routine function of the reservoir. NWL were looking into the possibility building the maintenance kiosk under ground but this is under review and not confirmed yet. While at the North end of the site it was clear to see the extent of the groundworks and the position of the planned reservoir, finished height assumptions were discussed and it was made clear that the roof of the reservoir at the North side of the site would be no higher than the current ground level, the roof would obviously flow out and down towards Mount Lane where it would project out onto the exiting landscape, NWL would undertake landscaping works to help minimise the projection of the building and the overall look of the finished building.

• At the NW corner of the site NWL confirmed that all archeological digging has been completed and finalised, some fragments of pots and bones have been found but nothing that impacts open the groundworks, the position of the inbound pipes from Derwent and Tyne discussed along with the valve systems to allow mixing and controls, the pipes from the Mount site would all enter underground passed the McStea buildings through the back of the Esh site onto the reservoir site adjacent to the kiosk building location, from this position the whole construction could be viewed which gave a great perspective on how the finished site would look like. 

• We returned to the site offices where visit photographs were taken and any further questions were answered. In total the visit lasted around 2 hours, NWL were happy to answer all questions and gave a full description of the site and current status, they mentioned they would try and plan a second visit in 12 months time to check on the progress and discuss any new issues, they also confirmed they would attend SVRA meetings to update us on their progress.