Barhale Lands £14.6m Pipeline Contract for Alconbury Weald New Town

Barhale has won a £14.6m contract from Anglian Water to build a 7,460-metre twin pumped rising main at Alconbury Weald in Cambridgeshire.

The pipeline will supply wastewater network capacity for the new town rising on the former RAF Alconbury base, which holds planning permission for 6,200 homes. Barhale will deliver the work through the @one Alliance, with handover scheduled for November 2027.

The contract addresses a capacity shortfall that Anglian Water and Barhale say is already on a fixed clock. "Housing and commercial growth, together with climate change and urban creep, mean the existing sewer network will no longer meet demand by 2027," said Ashley Jordan, Construction Manager at Barhale. "This project provides the necessary additional capacity."

Most of the route will use conventional open-cut trenching. Two crossings will not. Barhale plans horizontal directional drilling (HDD) installations beneath the East Coast Main Line railway and the River Great Ouse — crossings Jordan identifies as the job's principal technical risk.

"While the majority of the pipeline will be laid in conventional open-cut, the HDD installations beneath the East Coast Main Line and the River Great Ouse are quite challenging, particularly given the relatively wet ground conditions," Jordan said.

The wet ground of the Cambridgeshire fen edge complicates drilling under both obstacles. The East Coast Main Line crossing adds the constraint of working beneath one of Britain's busiest rail arteries without disrupting services.

Alconbury Weald is one of the largest regeneration schemes in the region, converting the former airfield into a mixed-use settlement. The wastewater main is the network upgrade required to keep the build-out programme on track as occupation of the new homes accelerates.

For Barhale, the job extends a delivery relationship with Anglian Water built through the @one Alliance, the collaborative delivery vehicle in which the contractor partners with the utility. "We are looking forward to working with Anglian Water and our @one Alliance partners to deliver an asset that will futureproof the network to support the continued growth of Alconbury Weald," Jordan said.

The November 2027 handover date aligns with the point at which, according to Jordan, the existing sewer network reaches the limit of its capacity — leaving little schedule float between commissioning the new main and the network falling short of demand.