At the beginning of July TBM Selina, built to create the final 5.5km stretch of London’s new super sewer, arrived in the capital. It was delivered to Tideway’s Chambers Wharf site in Bermondsey, where she will be lifted onto the site before beginning her underground journey toward Abbey Mills Pumping Station later in the year.

Selina was delivered to Chambers Wharf using a giant vessel called the Skylift 3000, having travelled 800km over the water from the port of Kehl in Germany to the banks of the Thames in central London.

A total of six TBMs are being used to create London’s super sewer (with two already having finished tunnelling), meaning Selina is the final machine to begin work – but she will tunnel at the deepest point. Beginning her journey more than 60m below the ground, Selina will tunnel on a slight decline toward the pumping station in east London.

Selina is named after Dr Selina Fox, who founded the Bermondsey Medical Mission in 1904. The small clinic and eight-bed hospital provided medical and spiritual care to the most vulnerable women and children in the area and continues to this day as a local charity.

Tunnelling predominantly through chalk, TBM Selina will head north east towards the already-built Lee Tunnel, which links Abbey Mills Pumping Station to Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.

Chambers Wharf in Bermondsey is a key site for the Tideway project – the launch site of Selina, but also the site at which TBMs Ursula (currently enroute from Battersea) and Annie (soon to begin her journey from Greenwich) will finish.

For archive information please click here and uk/54 and also find further information by visiting https://www.tideway.london/. 29/20.