The UK’s longest tunnel is currently being built beneath a national park. It will soon overtake the Northern Line on the London Underground as the longest in the nation.
Work is well underway on the project, which was originally estimated to cost £1.1billion. However, estimates have now skyrocketed to close to £7.4billion instead. The major project will be used to transport fertiliser across 23 miles and will be completely out of sight.
The Northern Line stretches 17 miles and was opened in 1937. Yet, the Woodsmith Mine Tunnel is gearing up to open in 2030 and take the crown as the longest in the UK.
The tunnel, overseen by AngloAmerican, will be the largest private sector infrastructure project. The plan is to extract polyhalite, a nutrient-rich fertiliser, from the North York Moors near Whitby to a processing plant in Teesside.
Tom McCulley, head of Anglo American’s crop nutrients division, previously said estimates of $9billion costs were “not too far off”, according to the Times. The line will stretch from an underground deposit near Whitby to a processing facility in Wilton, near Teesside.
Last month, the project marked a milestone in passing 30km in length, which is just over 18 miles. The tunnel boring machine (TBM), named Stella Rose, beat the longest continuous drive by a single TBM.
Woodsmith project director Andrew Johnson recently said: “We are incredibly proud of this milestone. The Woodsmith Project is one of the most innovative mining developments in the world today and construction is progressing well.
“We currently employ 1,100 people in the area of which 75% are local – something we are incredibly proud of. We are also proud to have a small international workforce with the specialist expertise we need for this unique world-class engineering project that will provide employment for hundreds of local people for many many years to come.”
The tunnel plan was met with some pushback at the start. Sirius Minerals managed to overcome 98 environmental regulations to gain planning permission for Britain’s first deep mine in more than 40 years.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
