Seven-week sewer repair starts on main city road

The burst sewer pipe flooded Eastern Road, Portsmouth in September

A £2.5m project starts later to repair a sewer which burst under a main road.

The A2030 Eastern Road in Portsmouth, Hampshire, was badly flooded when the rising main failed on 3 September.

Contractors will line the pipeline with chilled tubing, before heating and hardening it to form a seal.

One southbound lane between Burrfields Road and Tangier Road will be closed from 20:00 BST and will remain shut for about seven weeks, Southern Water said.

Chilled liners will be fed into the sewer before being heated and hardened

Alex Saunders, director of wastewater operations, said there had been "similar challenges along the pipeline in recent years".

He said: "We would like to thank road users and local residents for their continued patience while we implement a long-term solution which will make this important pipe more resilient."

Much of the work will be carried out at night to keep the tubing cool.

The liners, made of reinforced glass and resin, are fed into the pipeline and then heated, removing the need for digging to expose the full length of the sewer.

Lining work was carried out on another section of the road in 2024.

More than 1,000m of pipe from Farlington roundabout to beyond Anchorage Road was lined by the water company between May and July after frequent sewer bursts, leaks, and flooding.