Using Tunnelling Spoil to Support Habitat Restoration

We’re building 30km of cable tunnels stretching from Wimbledon in southwest London to Crayford in southeast London as part of our London Power Tunnels 2 project. 

The cable tunnels are needed to replace three existing electricity circuits that are coming to the end of their life. To avoid sending large amounts of soil and stones to landfill, we transported 220,000 tonnes of tunnelling spoil from this project to Pitsea to support habitat restoration in the area. 

The material will be used by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Veolia to restore the former Pitsea landfill to a grassland habitat and incorporate it into the surrounding nature reserve. 

Approximately 230,000 tonnes of spoil was also sent to Hermitage Quarry as part of its restoration. This is the equivalent of 284 tCO2e avoided emissions compared to if we had sent the waste to landfill. The imported material is used to fill the void created by the quarrying activities, restoring it to farm or woodland.