Boston to Peterborough (B2P) Wetland Corridor

The B2P business case update is now complete and a link will be uploaded to the IWA website on the Lincolnshire Branch pages as soon as it is finally signed off. One final piece of work that had to be done was to engage with Historic England to discuss their position regarding restoration of part of the Car Dyke near Peterborough as part of an open water channel which could be part of the water transfer for the provisional South Lincolnshire Reservoir(s) (SLR).

Part of the route is some of the original Car Dyke channel which still exists and is in water. This section is operated as a “Main River” by Environment Agency but is also a Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM). Despite SAM status there is absolutely no local interpretation or public access, but using the channel for part of the B2P channel would facilitate much more local archaeological investigation, and opening up the monument for local amenity. Historic England are open minded about this possibility and are definitely not minded to oppose this in principle. Much will depend on detailed local investigations and channel design.

This route was previously an option in the original Fen Waterways Link report by WS Atkins in 2003/4 but was discarded, principally because of the archaeological issues.

Car Dyke near Peterborough

Work on the initial SLR design concept will now allow for up to four site options/outline designs to be submitted to OFWAT by July 2021. (Gate 1 in OFWAT parlance). This is a revised OFWAT milestone, previously only one option was allowed. A final single option has to be completed by Gate 2 in July 2022. Most of the work is now concentrating on

water sourcing and ecological assessments.

I recently visited Covenham Reservoir near Louth, which is an Anglian Water public water supply (PWS) reservoir. Covenham, although much smaller than the projected size for SLR, is somewhat of a “scale model” for the SLR reservoir in that it is fed by an open water channel – The Louth Canal (canalised River Lud). Various views of Covenham on this page.

David Pullen