Dredging Up A Good Use For Tunnel Waste

DREDGING has been completed on time for the £260m second Tyne Tunnel scheme – boosting new industrial development in South Tyneside.

Tunnel bosses say the work is one of the most important parts of the massive civil engineering project.

Spoil dredged over the last few weeks will be used to create more development land at Tyne Dock, South Shields.

The cutter suction dredger Vesalius completed dredging operations this week on the trench set to accommodate the four pre-cast concrete sections that will eventually make up the new tunnel between Jarrow and East Howdon.

Experts carefully monitored the dredging operation, using live information transmitted from five dedicated water quality monitoring buoys.

And despite several heavy rainstorms during the five-week dredging period, all the work was carried out in strict accordance with guidelines laid down by the Environment Agency.

Trevor Jackson, managing director of New Tyne Crossing concessionaire TT2 Ltd, said: "Dredging the Tyne is one of the key parts of the project – the trench is absolutely vital to the construction of the new tunnel under the river.

"The operation has been a great success and thanks to the partnership developed with Port of Tyne we have been able to pursue a far superior approach then previously planned, reusing the dredged material to infill Tyne Dock."

Nicholas Caille, project managing director for Bouygues Travaux Publics, the New Tyne Crossing design and build contractor, said: "Overall, the works surpassed expectations and were completed in only five weeks."

Andrew Moffat, chief executive of Port of Tyne, said: "Right from the outset, we believed that using the spoil from the second Tyne Tunnel as an infill for the Tyne Dock was both an environmentally sound and a cost-efficient means of creating extra land to help us achieve our aim of creating a vibrant and sustainable port.