Lacock water supply enhancement

We've replaced more than two kilometres of degrading water main near the historic village in Wiltshire, safeguarding the quality and reliability of supply to rural communities.

What we did

From spring 2025, our sister firm YTL Construction UK and specialist civil engineering contractors Bartlett replaced 2.2 kilometres of the ageing main with new plastic pipes to improve the reliability of the network and reduce the risk of leaks.

The £2.5 million, nine-month project was completed in December 2025. Watch how our work progressed through the summer of 2025 below.

Overcoming challenges

Taking place on mainly private land around the historic village of Lacock, the project team overcame a number of challenges to complete the scheme without interruptions to local customers' supplies. This included directionally drilling underneath the River Avon and a sensitive woodland area adjacent to Bewley Lane to minimise environmental impact.

Working closely with our supply teams, the designs and programme were adjusted to minimise supply interruptions locally and ensure the strict conditions needed to drill safely under the river and woodland areas were meticulously implemented.

Around 3,300 cubic metres of earth was shifted during the project - but all of it was reused on site.

Preserving the past and present

More than 300 metres of the new main was installed via a slipline, or pipe insertion method - where a new, smaller-diameter pipe is pulled or pushed into the existing one - to ensure an archaeologically sensitive area featuring an Iron Age hill fort was protected.

A full-time archaeologist was employed in the opening stages of the project to help ensure the predominant open-cut method of installing the new main continued sensitively, resulting in tiles and pottery dating from around the 13th century that would have been produced at nearby medieval kilns and workshops being uncovered.

The teams also reinstated hedgerows and planted trees, as well as installing nearly a mile of fencing to protect Great Crested Newts as part of the measures to protect the environment and local ecology.

Further work was taking place during improved weather in the spring of 2026 to carry out more reseeding and reinstatement.