A temporary new piece of land built out into the Thames as part of work on the super sewer has been re-flooded – years after it was first built.

The ‘cofferdam’ along Albert Embankment was first created by building a wall of steel piles out into the river.

Water was then pumped out and the void backfilled to create a solid platform to allow Tideway to do its work.

This work at Albert Embankment Foreshore involved the interception two combined sewage overflow (CSO) points – the Clapham Storm Relief and the Brixton Storm Relief CSOs – in the river wall on the southern bank of the Thames.

In a typical year, these two CSOs discharged a total of 278,000 tonnes of untreated sewage into the River Thames.

Tideway’s work, once the project is fully operational in 2025, will reduce this figure by 95%.

The team on site has now hit a major milestone by flooding the cofferdam.

Attention now turns to removing the remaining structures that form the temporary cofferdam – and gradually exposing the new public space to the Thames for the first time.

This site is one of seven across the Tideway project to feature new areas of public space that will be opened in the coming months and years.

Tideway recently opened its first of these new areas of public space along Putney Embankment.

This aerial image, taken in August 2023, shows the size of the new public space and the
much larger area taken up by the temporary cofferdam, which is currently being removed.