Construction works have begun on the £13.3 million Lincolnshire Lakes flood defence scheme in North Lincolnshire, UK. Mott MacDonald delivered the detailed design of the project on behalf of North Lincolnshire Council.
Lincolnshire Lakes is a strategic £1.2 billion regeneration project which will see six new lakeside villages created on a former flood plain. It is anticipated that 6,000 homes, a business park, office accommodation and sports and recreation facilities will be built among a series of five artificial lakes by 2028. However, following a localised breach of the flood defences in 2013, as well as the ever-present risk of flooding in the area, extensive and resilient defences need to be installed to protect both future development plans and existing properties.
Mott MacDonald carried out an extensive options assessment of the existing earth flood defences, which found that repairing and raising these would not provide the resilient, low-maintenance solution that North Lincolnshire Council required. The new design solution identified and taken forward to construction will see 3.8km of sheet piles installed along the right bank of the River Trent, providing significant flood protection to the village of Burringham. Other services the consultancy delivered included flood modelling and risk assessments, ecological surveys and screening, planning application and environmental statement advice, stakeholder engagement and the drafting of construction specification documents.
Lee Geddes, Mott MacDonald’s project manager, said: “Gaining planning consent for this environmentally sensitive project was the culmination of a lot of hard work and collaborative effort from North Lincolnshire Council, the Environment Agency and Mott MacDonald and a real achievement for all involved.”
The Lincolnshire Lakes flood defence scheme is expected to be completed by summer 2019.