Scottish Water to build £100m wastewater tunnel in Glasgow

Scottish Water will build a £100m sewer tunnel in the south of Glasgow as part of the biggest upgrade of the city’s wastewater network in more than a century.

The wastewater tunnel will help to improve water quality and reduce flooding issues at key locations served by the Shieldhall wastewater treatment works. It will transfer combined sewer flows (surface water such as rainfall and wastewater from properties) and provide storm storage of heavy rainfall.

The project is part of Scottish Water’s £250m five-year programme of work to upgrade the wastewater network in the Glasgow area. The company announced the programme in February.

Construction work on the tunnel is likely to begin in mid-2014 and will take three-and-a-half years to complete.

Scottish Water asset management director Geoff Aitkenhead said: "The Shieldhall tunnel will resolve large-scale water quality problems in the River Clyde and its tributaries, provide aesthetic screening to overflows into watercourses such as tributaries of the Clyde and White Cart Water and reduce the risk of flooding."

The tunnel will be 3.1 miles long with a diameter of 4.65m and will be built using a specially designed tunnel boring machine.

Scottish Water’s investment in the tunnel, and the overall environmental improvement scheme, follows years of collaboration and studies by the Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Partnership (MGSDP), which includes Scottish Water, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and local authorities such as Glasgow City Council.