Drilling rig in Horwich park is part of major flood defence works

A DRILLING rig set up in a public park is part of plans for an underground tank to lessen the risk of floods in Horwich town centre.

Rumours were rife when drilling machinery was spotted at Old Station Park last week including inaccurate social media claims it was preliminary work which could lead to a skate park being built.

The Environment Agency is funding work which will mean 190 properties in Horwich are to be at lower risk from flooding.

A site investigation by Bolton Council’s highways and engineering is being carried out on Old Station Park.

Principal engineer Iain Shoebridge said “We will be carrying out a small site investigation in Old Station Park to help us with the on-going design of the Horwich Town Centre Flood Alleviation scheme.

“The purpose of the survey is to find out what type of soils and made ground exists across the park.

“The works are very small scale and the set-up will be a small drill rig.

“The rig drills a small diameter hole into the ground and a core sample is extracted.

“The work will not affect visitors to the park and upon completion there will be little or no evidence of the survey having taken place.”

Further information and the results of the survey will be available soon.

Horwich ward member Cllr Kevin McKeon, said the works had led to incorrect speculation about what was going on.

He said: “I’m glad we are getting this information out.

“The drilling has led to some incorrect rumours such as there’s going to be a skate park. There is no truth to that.”

Horwich and Blackrod First Independent Cllr David Grant said the work had been in the planning stage for a while.

He said: “The drilling isn’t due to the recent flash floods. The flood alleviation system for Old Station Park has been in the planning for around two years.

“It’s a huge tank that’s going underground which will carry a serious weight when full.

“The work is to check the depth and constitution of the ground for the best placement.”

The Horwich Town Centre Flood Alleviation scheme is predicted to cost around £2.2m.

A bid was registered by Bolton Council with the agency in 2014 to develop an alleviation scheme after previous incidents where homes were inundated with water.

Some of that was used to gather culvert flow data to use in the verification of hydraulic computer models.

The agency has previously outlined plans to lower the risk of flooding in Horwich in its River Douglas Catchment Flood Management Plan.

That report states: “There is a risk of flooding in the town from the River Douglas and its tributaries, Pearl Brook and Nellies Clough.”

The agency said ‘essential actions’ to achieve their policy included to ‘produce a prioritised list of structures for redesign or replacement’ and to work with the council and United Utilities over sewer and local surface water flooding.

They also resolved to complete a river model outline for Horwich (River Douglas, Pearl Brook and Jepson’s Clough) to reduce uncertainty of the current risk information from flood zones.

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