Delivering a £3bn Water Infrastructure Resilience Programme

Why It Matters

HARP secures long-term resilience for a major, energy‑efficient water artery serving millions, preventing potential supply disruption and reputational/regulatory risk. Its scale and technical complexity make it a once‑in‑a‑generation infrastructure project with significant cost, construction and public-interest implications.

Summary

United Utilities is delivering the £3 billion HARP (Horseshoe/Hard to parse name in transcript) water infrastructure resilience programme to replace aging sections of an 80-mile gravity-fed aqueduct that supplies northwest England, including Manchester. Built between the 1930s and 1950s, about half the route runs through deep tunnels whose condition inspections in 2013 and 2016 showed progressive deterioration. The programme focuses on replacing six key tunnel sections with new tunnelling works, following a multi-year preparation and procurement phase; John McNeel leads programme delivery and contract representation. Delivering the works requires complex isolation, civil engineering and logistics because the aqueduct is a single, critical conduit for regional water supply.

Original Description

Emma is joined by John McNeill ChPP, Head of Programme Delivery at United Utilities, who's helping to lead the £3bn Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme (HARP) in North-West England. What's it like to get a once-in-a-generation critical infrastructure programme off the ground? What's it like to work on a major project in an area, water supply, that is garnering so much public and media attention? Listen on to find out.