Engineering news
The European Investment Bank is to provide a £700 million loan for the £4.2 billion Thames Tideway Tunnel, the biggest infrastructure project ever undertaken by the UK water industry.
The project, dubbed the super sewer, will address the 39 million tonnes of sewage historically discharged into the river in a typical year, via the capital’s overloaded Victorian sewerage network.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel will be 25km long, with the main tunnel’s outer diameter measuring 7.2 metres. It will have a storage volume of 1.24 million cubic metres and run up to 66 metres beneath London. Joining up with the Lee Tunnel, it will control, temporarily store and transfer, the excess sewage to Beckton for treatment. In addition to the main tunnel, there will be several connection tunnels.
The 35-year long-term loan has been agreed with Tideway, the new regulated company set up to design, build, commission and maintain the tunnel, which will directly control or intercept discharges from more than 30 combined sewer overflow points, stretching from Acton in the west to Stratford in the east.
Jonathan Taylor, EIB vice-president, said: “This represents the European Investment Bank’s largest-ever water loan and the most significant support for UK infrastructure since Crossrail.
“It demonstrates the EIB’s strong commitment as the largest source of financing for long-term investment in UK water infrastructure since before privatisation and builds on more than £2 billion of support for investment to improve London’s water and waste water infrastructure since 1989.”
Mark Corben, Tideway chief financial officer, added: “The EIB’s backing for Tideway is an important vote of confidence in us as a company, as we move into the construction phase. This loan covers a significant proportion of the financing we need to raise. The innovative, index-linked structure enables us to lock-in financing costs, whilst also matching our funding requirements and profiling debt service, in line with the expected growth in our asset base.”