West Midlands: HS2 river realignment

National World - Viral Videos

A video shows HS2’s 749-metre river realignment in the West Midlands, where communities will be able to enjoy new public spaces such as footpaths and observation areas.

Transcript

00:00We are here on the Birmingham spur area of the Delta Junction. We are standing next to the river

00:22coal, the river diversion we've completed last year and we are standing between the two river

00:28coal east and west viaducts. The existing river coal was actually clashing with four major structures

00:35that we are building here and three of the embankments. So in order to build the structures

00:39and the embankments we've had to realign the river. We have the M42 south viaduct, we have

00:45the two river coal east and west viaducts and we also have the minor drive, the existing road with

00:50the overbridge. In May 2024 last year we started with the construction of the test channel. We had

00:57the long engagement with the environment agency in order to show them what we were going to build

01:02which was basically just a little part of the final realignment which was offline. It was also a good

01:08test for us for the team to see exactly what we were building, the different details of the reprop,

01:13core miting and all these kind of things. So it was a really good start. So in June 2024 we started

01:19the realignment of the new channel. We also had to install two temporary bridges which were both

01:2543 meters long then completely installed the portable frame dams. So we had to install three

01:31portable frame dams in three different locations. Once we had all the the test channel built we

01:37started by flooding the test channel first upstream. So we had some temporary dams with a frame and we

01:43had a membrane on top of that. So by upstream and downstream we had all those dams in place. So we

01:49removed first the membrane to let the water flow from downstream upstream to let the water find its way

01:53spread into the channel and to see how the the channel react to it really. So that was the first

01:59one we did with the test channel and in September we did the the bigger part of the stream. So same

02:04idea we started from downstream removing the portal dam, removing just the membrane, letting the water

02:09flow into the channel and then once all the water was in place we then removed the portal dam on the

02:14on the upstream part. Before we remove any of the portal dam and before we removed any of the membrane,

02:20we've had a visit from the environmental agency, we've had a designer coming to site as well to make

02:25sure everything was in place and was built properly. We had a specialist team of contractors in which

02:35electrofished the channel and consented by the environment agency and they did it in a phase

02:40approach. So start from sort of downstream end and put us in electrofishing area, capture those fish,

02:47put them into into into into buckets, aerate the water and check them for health, measurements,

02:53count the species and then place them back into a suitable location in the new river channel.

02:59Throughout this the sort of the scheme, the design scheme, the construction and then the evolution as

03:05this takes over time. We've got a number of areas and it's been designed to have multiple levels and

03:12so that you have a different flow amount without time. We've placed sandbars, gravels, we've utilized

03:18some of the local trees and from literally hundreds of meters away and that's been placed within the

03:24within the river bank and into the river to create stall points and riffles and allow them the

03:29river to naturally evolve over time and so that can deposit gravels and create habitats for fish to breed

03:34and deadwood over time. To incorporate the built structures, the river realignment, we've also done an area of

03:42replacement flood storage so within the project we call it an RFS. That's linked to the river channel itself.

03:48The replacement flood storage it basically acts as a giant sink. If we end up with a large downpour of rain

03:55and a weather event that that wouldn't be able to handle all, the the water will flow into the

04:00replacement flood storage area, it'll store there for a short amount of time and then it'll just

04:04seep back into the river and downstream over the following days, weeks and months.

04:10So since we've completed the river realignment we've vacuumed the existing river, we've completed

04:15now the rigid inclusion which are the the ground improvements by all the abitments of the viaducts

04:24here so we have five areas. We've also completed the technical backfill on the northern side of the

04:30river called east and west viaducts to be ready to connect the greenland embankment which will be

04:34finished this year as well. We've increased the length of river in this area and then we've created

04:41new embankments, new planting which is improving the no net loss in this area and increasing the

04:48biodiversity of this area and hopefully as we move forward into the future we'll be able to, as the

04:55construction work stops, start to bring in people into this area. We will be working with the local

05:01borough councils to open this up underneath all of the viaducts through this area creating footpaths

05:07and walkways. This diversion has helped us to bring in some of our really key indicator species along this

05:15area. This is a salmonoid river environment so we've been able to work with the fisheries to improve

05:21things for those types of species. Throughout this period there have been a huge number of technical

05:27jobs that have taken this idea all the way through. The diversity of jobs and the ability and the

05:35employment this has created is huge and the skills I hope will be moved on into the future onto other

05:41parts of HST and then into the future onto other infrastructure projects in UK. So the next steps of

05:47this site are to blend and move to a position where we can start opening this up to the local population

05:55as the construction work stops and then I hope that people will start to feel what HST really will be

06:02which is not just a railway it's also a green corridor and also some really excellent areas

06:08that people and the public can start to use. I hope in 10 years time to be able to bring my family here

06:15and show them what we've been able to create an environment with a beautiful water course running

06:20through the middle of it, walkways to allow people to be able to access it safely and also to show

06:27what HS2 has brought to this area.

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