Giant tunnel boring machine arrives in London

A giant tunnel boring machine has made its arrival to London as workers complete the last stretch of the capital’s £4.2billion ‘super sewer’ project beneath the Thames. 

The large cylindrical device, named Selina, which is set to create the final 5.5km stretch of the 15-mile Thames Tideway Tunnel scheme, was delivered to Cambers Wharf in Bermondsey earlier today. 

Estimated to cost nearly half the amount of the 2012 Olympics, work for the new sewage system began in 2016 and is the biggest infrastructure project ever undertaken by the UK water industry. 

Tideaway, the company behind delivering the Thames Tideway Tunnel in London, has confirmed that the machine will be lifted onto the site before beginning her underground journey toward Abbey Mills Pumping Station later in the year. 

The project will stretch all the way from Acton in West London, along the general path of the River Thames, towards Limehouse where it will veer north-east to Abbey Mills Pumping Station near Stratford. 

Maurice Gallagher, Deputy Delivery Manager for the eastern section of the project, said: ‘To welcome Selina to site is a great moment for Tideway – and for London.

‘Although there is much work still to be done, her arrival in the capital means we’re on the final stretch – and closer than ever to a cleaner, healthier River Thames.’

The machine, which was transported from Kehl in Germany, was delivered to the Tideaway’s site in central London, the launch site of the Selina, using a giant vessel called the Skylift 3000.

It is part of six tunnel boring machines being used to create the super sewage project which will be situated 200 feet below the river.

The machine, which is needed to prevent an average of 55million tonnes of untreated sewage being discharged into the river each year, is named after Dr Selina Fox, who founded the Bermondsey Medical Mission in 1904.   

The original hospital created by Dr Fox, who was the daughter of a renowned civil engineer, consisted of just eight beds and was able to provide medical care to women and children in the local area.   

Thames Water previously insisted the multi-billion pound project was crucial to stop London returning to the days of the ‘Great Stink’ when the river acted as an open sewer.

At the time, in the mid-1880s, residents complained of the smell from the river which was full of raw sewage.

The problem was eventually solved by engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who built a 1,300 mile network of Victorian sewers to stop untreated sewage being pumped into the Thames.

Built from three main construction sites in Fulham, Battersea and Southwark, the Thames Tideway Tunnel is expected to help treat some of the 55million tonnes of ‘overflow’ raw sewage which the current system cannot cope with and is expected to be finished in 2024.

The new system will intercept the sewage before it enters the river and carefully treat it before pumping it back into the water in East London.