Laing O'Rourke, Murphy and Daniel up for £125m aqueduct scheme

Three firms are vying to tap into a deal to build a major aqueduct through the heart of north-west England.

Battling it out for the £125m scheme are Laing O'Rourke, Murphy and Daniel Contractors.

Client United Utilities said: "Ideally we would like this project to start on site early next year."

The job is expected to take around two years to complete.

The centrepiece of the project is a 54km water pipeline from Prescot reservoir in Merseyside to Woodgate Hill reservoir in Bury, Greater Manchester.

Ian McAulay, United Utilities' managing director of capital programmes, said: "Pipelines like this are the motorways of the water supply network and this will be one of the biggest engineering projects we have ever undertaken.

"The engineering challenges are big but the project is vital to give us more flexibility in the future during times of drought or when we need to cary out maintenance on other major aqueducts in the region.

"For this reason, it's important we start construction work soon."

The 1.2m diameter underground pipeline will be capable of transporting up to 100 million litres of water a day between Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

The project includes 15 tunnels along the pipeline route to cross obstacles such as motorways, rivers and the West Coast railway line and involving special tunnelling machines working at depths of up to 20m.