An historic gas pipe buried under a major city road is set to cause disruption to traffic for around two weeks.
Cadent, which manages the local gas network, was alerted by a member of the public to the smell of gas along Aigburth Road in south Liverpool. The subsequent leak has been traced to a pipe dating back to around 1860.
The gas network company has insisted the situation has been brought under control but essential repairs will now need to be made. The pipe, which is located near to Home Bargains and facing opposite Sefton Park Library, runs directly beneath the centre of the two city-bound lanes.
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To carry out the maintenance, Cadent will dig a three metre deep and three metre wide pit. The site will take up both of the city bound lanes.
A traffic flow change will now be introduced for around two weeks. For cars to be able to head north-bound towards the city centre, work will begin tomorrow, Thursday July 13, to remove a number of street lighting columns in the central reservation and lower the raised embankment.
This will enable the city-bound traffic to merge into one of the two lanes on the opposite side of the carriageway. This change will be operational from Sunday July 16, according to Cadent.
The amended traffic flow will mean vehicles can continue to move in both directions. Instead of two lanes each way, there will only be one.
Dale Martin, Customer Operations Area Manager for Cadent, said: “This pipe is from a different era, when no-one could possibly have imagined the type of traffic that runs above it today. We’d hoped the pipe might be confined to one lane, but we now know it straddles both, and that’s created a big challenge for us.”
Dale added: “What we’re going to do, having consulted the city council and emergency services, is keep traffic flowing in both directions by making some temporary changes to the central reservation. I think motorists should still be prepared for traffic to build up and, if they have other routes they can take, it would be wise to do so while we carry out this work.
“The leak itself is under control, but to fix it we need to expose the full circumference of the pipe so that we can carry out a repair technique called ‘encapsulation’. This is basically us wrapping the part with a special casing, stopping the leak.
“I would like to thank everyone for bearing with us – keeping everyone safe is always going to be our first priority, but we are working hard too in order to find ways to keep unavoidable disruption to a minimum.”
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