Esh-Stantec £6.9m Teesdale water project: design and risk notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Work is due to start on a £6.9M upgrade to Selset Reservoir, near Barnard Castle in County Durham, with Esh-Stantec delivering improvements to Teesdale’s strategic water supply assets for Northumbrian Water. The scheme is expected to focus on refurbishing existing raw water infrastructure and treatment interfaces at the reservoir, rather than building new storage, to improve resilience of supply to downstream works. Contractors and designers will need to manage construction around an operational impounding reservoir, with associated geotechnical, temporary works and water quality constraints.
Technical Brief
- Construction sequencing must maintain raw water continuity to Teesdale works, driving complex temporary works and isolation planning.
- On-reservoir activities will require strict turbidity and contamination controls to protect downstream treatment performance.
- Safety management will need to address deep water, steep embankment slopes and live plant operations concurrently.
- Similar refurbishment-led schemes are becoming common as UK water companies sweat existing assets rather than build new storage.
Our Take
New Civil Engineer’s repeated attention to digital handover and asset data issues in recent webinars suggests that Esh-Stantec’s work at Selset Reservoir will likely be expected to deliver robust as-built and O&M data, which can be a disproportionate burden on mid-sized projects in regions such as County Durham.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
