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Hello, I'm here down at Tybe Way, Blackfriars. You see the river behind me, the project. This is the London Super Sewer, the biggest civil engineering project in London for decades
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centuries old sewerage system keeping the well the waste that Londoners produce
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out of the river that's the idea at least I'm going on tour let's go take a look
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but first I need to get my PPE wall put on right well I'm staring into the
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summer behind me you can see a lion that's a listed lion there run all the way along
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the Thames and when the water and the river hits the lion's mouth when the lion's drinking
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London's sinking now why am I able to see it so close because the area that I'm on is entirely
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new eight years ago this was the River Thames now underneath me of course is the
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super sewer but what they're building on top is this huge public park about one and a half acres
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with designs from various artists that'll open it up to the public so like stuff
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So just behind me here is the dam that was installed so that all the work we just see could actually be done
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Obviously they don't need the river coming into that work. The river needs to be kept away
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This took a couple of years to build. It's going to take another year to polish
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But what's really interesting, we're just about to see the barge behind me, is all of the material
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rather than coming in via road and then going out by road, is all shooting up and down the river
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river so what we're seeing it pretty much for the first time in more than the
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century is the Thames being used not just as you know clippers and pleasure
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boats but actually as a genuine commercial route people using it for transport
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all right behind me is the problem so this is a flat an original flat which
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flows into the Thames approximately 60 times a year when the sewage system is
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overloaded. That equates to about half a million tons of raw sewage flowing into the Thames
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As I say, 60 times a year, you can see behind me that gate at the bottom there is what opens up
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flows into the river where under Blackfire's Bridge, as I say. Now, the project is going to reduce
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that to probably two or three times a year, really biblical storm stuff, but it's also going to
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mean that what's emptied into the river is extraordinarily diluted compared to what it is now
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not first flush. We do get used to some strange terms in this world, not first flush, but
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distinctly treated and of course healthier for the fish and things in the river as well
