Behind the Barriers: Bude gets an upgrade!

15th April 2022

Bude, with its sweeping beaches, meta-stone cliffs and seemingly endless, green countryside is a beautiful place to live and visit. It is currently home to just over 10,500 people, but when summer hits, the town becomes a very popular tourist destination, and its population increases dramatically. With this number set to get bigger every year, we're making sure that our essential services remain fit for purpose, with five projects in and around the town.

So what have we been doing?

Well, we’ve teamed up with Galliford Try, and just outside the main town, near the village of Marhamchurch, we built a brand-new storm tank - an enormous 6m-wide and 9m-deep well! When you see the finished concrete platform that covers it now, it’s hard to imagine what’s beneath and the hard work and skill that went into it. To connect it to the existing pipework, 500m of new pipework needed to be laid.

The area that the pipes were to go through was home to plenty of wildlife, including rarer species like salmon and kingfishers.  This pipework had to cross both the canal and the busy A39 road in very marshy conditions. Keep reading to find out how we did it with minimal disruption to wildlife and road users.

Another, project took place in Stratton. Engineers Dave, Scott and David replaced an old pumping station with a brand new, state-of-the-art pump and valve chamber that can manage a much higher volume of wastewater. They also replaced 2 kilometres of pipework with larger, wider pipes. But, the landowner whose land they were working on, had a very restricted area he could use to keep his horses, sheep and dog, so his land was very precious to him and the less we disturbed it the better. On top of that, there was a 5m wide river flowing through his land which the pipes had to cross. It was clear that traditional, open cut excavation was out of the question here!

Luckily, project managers Andy and Ben knew exactly what could be done. Using a technique called directional drilling, they were able to drill horizontally, 12m under the surface, in order to lay the pipes with minimal disruption. 

Site manager, Morley, explained, “A direction drill is basically a mobile drilling machine which pushes a rotating rod through the ground. It has sonar in the head so they can locate it, and it’s steered by the head being angled. This method enables us to drill under problem areas causing very little damage to farmland, hedgerows and in this case rivers and roads.”

And remember those meta-stone cliffs? Well, the drill met some of this stone on its journey underground in Stratton, and that rock is hard! It took us 4 weeks to cut through 100m of it! But the benefits this had to the environment and the locals was worth the wait.

Morley continued, “When they finished there was no disturbance to the field, river or hedgerows. All there is from the contractor is a launch pit, approximately 5m long and 2m wide and a reception pit the same size.”

Anyone in the area at the time wouldn’t have realise that 12m below, drilling and pipe installation was taking place! Amazing!

The improvements made to Bude's existing wastewater network means we're more than prepared to meet surges in demand from tourists, and an increasing population within the area. This will also help maintian the excellent water quality of Bude's rivers and beaches, because we can better control the wastewater in the network and the amount entering our treatment works, making them more efficient.

But it isn’t all about the task at hand for those working on site. These amazing people went out of their way again and again. One time, arriving on site in Stratton, they found an injured barn owl who, without their quick-thinking and action, wouldn’t have survived. The owl had a broken wing, so the team called in local vet Mr Rowlands, from Pembode Vets, who, along with his team, were able to help the owl. It is all looking positive for the owl’s release into the wild after a stay at a specialist centre for wildlife.

The teams were hit with the storms a couple of months back, and were able to jump to the aid of locals who had been affected by damage. One resident who lived close to our project in Broadclose Farm lost a fence panel. Our team made sure his garden remained secure for his dog to use by filling the gap with one of their own security fence panels whilst he arranged for a repair. The owner (and his dog) were so grateful that they surprised the team with some baked goods.

We also want to say a huge well done and thank you to these teams of incredible people!