Eltham

Site update

From Friday 25 November 2022 the Eltham site has been managed by Balfour Beatty, who have been granted permission by Greenwich Council to work on Saturdays and Sundays from 7:30am to 6pm. The team has been working within these additional hours since then and this working pattern is expected to continue until July 2023. The extended working hours will be used to prepare the tunnel for vital cable installation works. 

We are updating our delivery schedule and expect there to be five to seven large deliveries per month from January to May 2023. The timing of these deliveries will be agreed in advance with Transport for London, with the first delivery scheduled to take place on Thursday 5 January 2023.

As before, a security presence is maintained on site at all times. Please be assured that we will continue to closely monitor our activity and do all that we can to minimise noise from the site wherever possible.

Overview

Our site at Eltham is located on Rochester Way, north of Falconwood railway station. We will be building a permanent shaft and headhouse at this site in order to receive the tunnel boring machines from our existing substation sites at New Cross and Hurst. The shaft and headhouse will be used for ventilation and as a permanent access route for the tunnel once it is built.

We are building the tunnels and shafts under our permitted development rights. There are points along the tunnel route where we need to build headhouses to cover the shafts. Headhouses are required for ventilation and as a permanent point of access for the tunnel once it is built.

Our application to the Royal Borough of Greenwich to build a headhouse at our site in Eltham was approved in February 2019, as well as a temporary access route from Welling Way, across Falconwood Field.

The submission of our planning application followed a series of public information events we held at various locations across our route in 2018, where members of the public found out more about our works and the wider project and gave us some helpful feedback.
 

Key milestones achieved at Eltham

• Held public information events in 2018 about the shaft and headhouse

• Application to build a headhouse at our site in Eltham was approved by the Royal Borough of Greenwich Council in February 2019.

• Completed building the temporary haul road from Welling Way, across Falconwood Field, in September 2021. The new haul road will help avoid disruption to local residential roads.
   

Working hours

• Our working hours at Eltham are 8am - 6pm Monday to Friday, and 7.30am - 6pm Saturday to Sunday.

• There will be no work on Bank Holidays.

• Occasional out of hours work may be necessary and we will keep you informed about this.
   

Key facts

• Dimensions: The shaft will be approximately 15m in diameter and will reach a depth of approximately 40m. The headhouse will have a maximum footprint of 15m by 15m and will reach a maximum height of 10m.

• Traffic movements: We anticipate there will be approximately 16 HGV movements per day during shaft construction, and 4 per week during headhouse construction.

• Access: Our construction vehicles will use Rochester Way to enter and leave the site, before joining the A2.
   

Timeline

• Shaft construction works took place between October 2021 and May 2022.

• Following the tunnel boring machine (TBM) breakthrough from Hurst in June 2022, we plan to recover the TBM, clean out the tunnel (Eltham to Hurst Tunnel) and install brackets and monorail in the tunnel from Eltham to Hurst. These activities will run from June 2022 to November 2022.

• Cable installation in the Eltham to Hurst tunnel will take place by mid-2023. The shaft will then be prepped again for a second TBM arriving from New Cross to Eltham.

• A permanent headhouse will be built constructed by March 2025.