Thames Tideway Tunnel

Running from Acton in west London to Beckton in the east, the project has been divided into three construction sections (west, central and east), each managed by a different contracting consortium.

Aggregate Industries, through Bennett’s Barges, secured the contract to move spoil away by river on the western section of the £4.2 billion project in early 2017.

Our role will be to remove the 800,000 tonnes of spoil produced from the tunnelling process, to be loaded, transported via the River Thames and deposited at a suitable site in the East. The uninterrupted operation of tunnel boring machines is a critical success factor for the project and therefore the removal of spoil at the required rate is a fundamental part of the construction phase.  

Due to the location of the project, the required volume of spoil to be removed, plus congestion on London's roads, the decision was made early in the project that the spoil must be moved to the deposition site on river barges. By using this method, it means approximately 34,000 less vehicle movements on the road network.

The project is well underway and we have shifted thousands of tonnes (and counting!) of spoil, primarily from the Carnwath Road site.