‘It’s impossible to capture the scale of operations here, it’s all so vast!’  This comment from a visitor is a reminder to those involved every day in the groundworks programme that this really is a huge undertaking. The whole landscape has been transformed in the past few months, and will change further.

Some of the biggest changes have taken place at the reservoir. Since October, we’ve infilled a section of the lagoon to create a causeway that will provide a direct route from the scrap processing area to the Consteel (EAF) facility. The newly-recovered area will also accommodate the material handling silos and the water pump house. The first task was to lower the reservoir’s level overall by 7.5m, made possible by closing the giant valves that control the flow from the larger Eglwys Nunydd reservoir. As the water levels dropped, we used bunds to hold back the water – and the fish – to the part of the reservoir that will be retained, and began removing around 22,000 m³ of silt from the lagoon bed, which will be repurposed in groundworks around the site. Nothing goes to waste here. We’ve now put down about two-thirds of the 100,000 m³ of aggregate that has been supplied to form an even, compacted, platform about a metre above the water level. The final step will be to surface the causeway with tarmac.

Turning water into land is challenging at the best of times, and for most of this year we’ve had to contend with some of the wettest weather conditions on record. With strong collaboration between Tata Steel and suppliers SRM and KB, the teams have recovered the schedule and brought the programme back on track.

You can get an idea of the activity in this short timelapse video. 

Now we are in March, the next big step is piling. Around 3,500 piles will be used for the ConSteel (EAF) and they are absolutely critical to its support structure.