- Four pipes – some as wide as a car tyre – being replaced in Sansome Walk and Lion Court
- Part of £65m investment by gas network Cadent to upgrade its metallic pipes in West Midlands
- Details of temporary changes to traffic flow to keep everyone safe during six weeks of work
Essential work starts in Worcester city centre on Monday (7 January) to bring an end to increasingly frequent disruption caused by problems with ageing underground gas mains.
Specialist mains replacement teams move in to Sansome Walk, and move later to Sansome Place/Lion Court, to replace FOUR old, metallic pipes with new, tough and long-lasting plastic ones.
There are four pipes directly under the road surface, and these distribute gas to many thousands of local homes, to fuel central heating systems and help cook food.
But these are now showing signs of age and are now in a condition that has led local gas network Cadent to consider them in need of urgent replacement, to ensure safety.
Local residents in Sansome Walk, Sansome Place and Lion Court were visited by customer teams in November and December, and have also had letters, explaining the need for this work.
Planners have worked closely with Worcestershire County Council to agree the timing of this work and the temporary traffic changes that need to be enforced.
The works comes in two phases:
- Phase one, from 7 January to 28 January: Sansome Walk will be closed from the junction with Pierpoint Street to the junction with Sansome Place, which means a signed diversion route will be in place.
- Phase two, from 28 January to 18 February: the teams then move into Lion Court/Sansome Place where traffic will be guided safely around the work area by temporary traffic lights.
Every year, Cadent invests around £65m upgrading hundreds of miles of gas mains in the West Midlands. This is part of a multi-million pound, UK-wide programme to upgrade metallic gas mains, to ensure they are capable of delivering gas safely and ‘on demand’ until at least the end of the century.
Craig Horrocks, who heads Cadent’s gas mains replacement programme in the West Midlands, said: “This is essential work, to ensure we can safely deliver gas to thousands of properties in this area of Worcester, where it is used to keep people warm and cook food.
“We’re dealing with pipes here that are the same size in diameter as a car tyre and we’ll be operating heavy machinery – it’s our priority to keep everyone safe while we do this major engineering.
“We are aware this is a very busy area and have worked closely with the county council’s highways team to minimise disruption as best we can.”
Cadent is the UK’s biggest gas network, ensuring gas is delivered to more than 11 million customers from Cumbria to London. It manages a network of more than 80,000 miles of (mostly) underground pipes. Placed end to end, that amount would stretch more than three times around the world.
If residents / businesses have any questions about this Worcester job, they can contact the customer team on
0161 703 1000. For further information of diversion routes and access please refer to
Roadworks.org
More information on Cadent’s mains replacement programme is at
www.bettergaspipes.co.uk