WORK on a massive £4.7m sewer improvement in Great Yarmouth's Northgate Street is underway. For the last few weeks contractors from Anglian Water have been carrying out ground tests to ensure they come across no obstacles when tunnelling work on a new sewer begins - such as electrical cables.

WORK on a massive £4.7m sewer improvement in Great Yarmouth's Northgate Street is underway.

For the last few weeks contractors from Anglian Water have been carrying out ground tests to ensure they come across no obstacles when tunnelling work on a new sewer begins - such as electrical cables.

Spokeswoman Sara Rowland explained the water company had been speaking to local landowners to see what land, if any, could be used by the company during the works in order to minimise disruption.

She said: “The less work carried out on the highway, the better. This really is the final stages of the design. It's literally down to where the new sewer will run which depends on ground conditions. We are trying desperately to avoid disruption and road closures.”

Contractors are expected to start major works next month - drilling three shafts for a tunnelling machine which will create the new sewer. The scheme will see sewer capacity trebled - from 350mm to 1.5m in diameter - and includes a new pumping station and storage tank.

The project, expected to be completed by March 2009, will see a pumping station installed in a car park outside Northgate St Andrews Infant School, opposite Beaconsfield Road, with an underground storage tank that will hold up to 850 cubic metres of water. Workers have already taken over part of the site - with vans, materials and machinery.

The major investment comes after the area was devastated by flooding in September 2006 when six months of rain fell in just a few hours flooding thousands of homes and businesses across the borough.

The new sewer will run along Northgate Street for almost a kilometre. It will start from the junction with Ormond Road and run about 440m up Northgate Street and discharge into the new storage tank.

From the tank the sewer will continue a further 490m up Northgate Street across Lawn Avenue and head down Tar Works Road to discharge at the existing New Tar Works pumping station.

Northgate Street will be closed during part of the work but all access to shops and homes will be maintained. Official diversions will be in place and more information on these will be available nearer the time.

Picture: Laura Bagshaw