Environment Agency announces the locks up for improvement

Eight of the non-Tidal River Thames locks to be improved.

The Environment Agency has this week confirmed which non-tidal River Thames Locks will benefit from improvement works in the remainder of the financial year.

Starting in November for a four-month period, the £1M scheme will see eight lock sites developed in order to guarantee they remain in good working condition for many more years.

This, plus the improvements to the associated structures will result in boaters being able to continue using the 135 miles of navigable waterway from Cricklade, Wiltshire, to Teddington in Middlesex, at which point the river becomes tidal.

In total eight of the 45 locks have been chosen for the improvement scheme, although the programme is still subject to change.

The chosen locks are St John’s, Godstow, Culham and Day’s Locks, all in Oxfordshire, Temple Lock in Buckinghamshire, Cookham and Boulters Locks based in Berkshire and finally, Penton Hook Lock in Middlesex.

Improvement works range from re-sheeting head and repairing tail lock gates to lock chamber refurbishments and lock gate control system replacements.

The improvements are part of a programme of works carried out by the Environment Agency on the River Thames every year between November and Easter.

The projects are usually scheduled for this time of year in order to minimise disruption to river users, while at the same time, avoiding the months that see the most usage by boats.

Barrie Douglass is the Environment Agency’s Waterways Engineer for the River Thames and he outlined the need for closures.

“Any work at a lock site, even a relatively minor repair, can be a complex undertaking,” he said.

“When we need to renovate a lock chamber for example, we have to install a coffer dam around it using sheet piling, then brace the chamber to maintain its structural integrity before pumping the water out so we can work in dry conditions.

“When gates have to be removed, we need to get a mobile crane with a boom of around 80 feet onto site, to safely lift out the gates, each of which weighs several tonnes.

“And before any of this happens, our in-house carpenters have been hard at work fabricating new rubbing timbers, gate frames and other components out of solid lumps of sustainable tropical hardwood.”

At a combined value of £425M, the Environment Agency looks after more than 1,000 individual navigation assets in total on the Thames, including lock structures, lock houses, access roads and bridges.

Work on the eight locks is expected to be completed by March 2016.

The post Environment Agency announces the locks up for improvement appeared first on UK Construction Online.