A major scheme to repair a collapsed sewer pipe at Appley in Ryde will not be completed by the end of the month, despite Southern Water previously stating that the October date given was a ‘worst-case scenario’.
It was back in January of this year that a large sinkhole appeared, prompting investigation works to identify the cause. It soon became evident that a 1-metre wide sewer, which carries all of Ryde’s wastewater, had collapsed some 10 metres underground.
Tankers were initially brought in to transfer wastewater from the area whilst work began to install ‘temporary’ bypass pipes. Those pipes have been holding up the sewage network ever since, with generators and pumps working around the clock to shift the 900 litres a second of wastewater that passes through the area from Ryde, Binstead and Seaview.
Now, almost 10 months on from the discovery of the sinkhole, and work has still not been completed with roads closed, car parks shut and businesses facing continued disruption. Visitors to the area have noted the lack of work taking place, as well as the rancid smell of raw sewage as it is pumped into the nearby pumping station and onwards to Sandown. The smell has become so bad that local business Cadet Beach Club has had to temporarily close.
Keith Herbert, Southern Water’s Area Manager for the Isle of Wight, told Island Echo back in April that it was unlikely the work would be completed in time for the summer season, but that October – the date of the expiration of the traffic notices – was very much a worst-case scenario. He said that the company would be working day in, day out to make sure they challenged that time scale as much as possible.
However, Island Echo can now reveal that work will not be completed by the end of this month, with no firm date given as to when Southern Water will finish the repairs and hand Appley back to the community.
It’s thought that the emergency repairs have cost several millions of pounds to date, with the project having cost £2.5million back in April. It’s known that the pumping equipment costs £25,000 a week to hire, running up a bill of in excess £650,000 alone.
Further clarity on the situation is expected from Southern Water in the coming days and weeks.
Yet still they propose building thousands more homes, each adding to our waste and fresh water demands.
The latter by upping the pressure in the water mains, thus adding to pipes bursting, the former overloading aged Victorian sewer systems, which WE will have to pay for by increased bills, just to make developers richer.
all infrastructures are the same they are out to make as much profit as they can, and payout nice dividends .we also pay more to Souther water to remove our sewage than we receive our water supply. We should not expect the water company to discharge it elswere or even the customers to clean up the raw sewage after them .
No surprise. Not really bothered how long it takes, just as long it lasts.
Best of luck on that one.
Based on past experiences in Ashey and Brading it will take between three and ten times as long as they quote, fail within weeks of completion and they’ll still claim to be doing a good job.
The worst bit is that we will be paying for this incompetence in the form of ever increasing bills.
Surely there must be a regulator somewhere that should be monitoring this?
Who will pay the regulater?….and how many brown envelopes will pass hands hiding the truth?…
There is. But like all British government-appointed regulators they are supine and toothless (I dare say they would claim “under-resourced”, but then no-one in HM Gov seems over-keen to complain about fraud, nepotism, cronyism and downright crime when it’s all so close to home).
And, this is despite the ‘grilling’ that the representative from Southern Water got from our illustrious Council!
They made all sorts of pathetic excuses, did not come up with a robust set of proposals for any solution to the innumerable burst pipes that occur all too frequently across the Island.
This should have had operatives throw at it 24/7, and the repairs completed long ago.
Pipe burst as pressure is increased BECAUSE of all the new homes using and disposing of water. YET no one will say so as they want the profits
if new house contruction increases so must the diameter of the water pipe increase as well as all new mains installed .
They could not do that as there is miles of pipe work back to the resevoirs on the downs, so it is cheaper to increase pressure, but that ruptures old pipe and connections, but WE pay for such on increased bills, so the companies don’t care but WE should, and the developers of these masse housing get away with ruining our lives to their profit.
I suppose that now the weather has changed, this work will drag on into the New Year and we will be given excuse after excuse.
I see someone has noticed the stink of sewage and wondered how many also notice it down at Sandown when the wind is not blowing it off shore. Its about time one of these government departments staff got out of their working from home house and smelt it and do something useful.