A next key milestone in the essential flood prevention work at Sheffield Forgemasters has now begun, with drilling to create the Bagley Brook transfer system underway.
The system will allow storm water to be diverted from Bagley Brook and contained in large tanks before being pumped into the River Don and is being undertaken as part of the company’s development of a new 13,000t forging line at Brightside Lane.
A tunnel boring machine has been delivered to site and placed into the 15m x 11.8m deep shaft. It will then drill out the 320m long tunnel from the riverside under Brightside Lane to Bagley Brook on Gate 1 side.
The final tunnel will be 1.80m in diameter and have a storage capacity of approximately 3.125M litres, around 20,000 bathtubs of water. The new pumping station will then be able to discharge 8,000L of water per second that’s approximately 50 bathtubs every second.
The work will be completed and the new pumping station operational by the end of Summer 2027.
The new building is under construction on the North side of Brightside Lane, adjacent to the Midland Mainline railway, and alongside the new machine shop which is currently under construction, forms the backbone of a £1.3bn recapitalisation programme to underpin UK defence programmes.