12 October 2005 00:00 The earth moves for Central Networks as it delivers

Drilling under railway crossings, building a fence to protect newts and moving 4,500 cubic meters of earth is all in a day’s work for hard-working Central Networks engineers in Staffordshire.

As part of an investment programme that started four years ago, Central Networks has built a new substation and laid 4.5 kilometres of electricity cable to reinforce supplies in the Forsbrook, Blythe Bridge and Cheadle areas of Staffordshire.

Central Networks Project Manager John Mather said: “The aims of the project were to upgrade the local networks to ensure our customers continue to receive a reliable supply and also ensure the local environment is cared for.

“We achieved this by using some innovative solutions to some of the challenges we’ve faced.

“We needed to lay the cable across the route of “The Foxfield Railway” and decided that the best solution was to use special directional drilling and go underneath the track to avoid disruption to the railway operations.

“In addition, levelling the ground the new substation at Forsbrook would sit on has helped to reduce its visual impact.

“And we also found that our new substation had some wild neighbours - Greater Crested Newts. So we worked with a specialist environment company to ensure our work has minimum impact on their habitats.

Work on the substation and the cable laying will be completed by the end of next year, when the new substation will be switched on to reinforce electricity supplies to customers in Staffordshire.

John said: “It was important we did this work to ensure our already reliable supply was ‘future proofed’. It’s important we build a network that can meet and exceed the demand.

“I’m delighted with how it’s going so far and I’m also very pleased that our work has had a minimum impact on the local environment.”

Ends

Notes to editors:
•Central Networks is the new name for Midlands Electricity and East Midlands Electricity. The company brings power to 4.8 million customers across the East and West Midlands through 133,000km of underground and overhead cables – enough to go round the Earth almost four times – and via almost 97,000 substations;
•Central Networks covers an area from the Peak District in the north to parts of Bristol in the south, and from the Welsh Borders to the Lincolnshire Coast.

For further information contact:
Rebecca Middleton on 024 7642 5779