Manchester Square Pumping station, Blackpool 110111
 

Spent a week in Blackpool, and decided to have a wander down to Squires Gate to see how much remained of Pontins.
Took the scenic route across the beach, few arty photo shots underneath the piers and wot not.

As I approached the central pier, a rather rude gentleman instructed me to be "quiet on set and no photographs", it appeared they were filming some comedy sketch for something, and seeing as how I didn't recognise any of the actors, I carried on my merry way.

Just past the central pier is the outflow from the Manchester square pumping station, which is a part of the Fylde coast waste water management scheme,
quote from U'U's website "Fleetwood Wastewater Treatment Works was completed in summer 1996 as part of a £150 million investment programme along the Fylde coast. This helped improve local bathing waters by ending the daily discharge of millions of litres of untreated wastewater from the Fylde coast.
As part of this work we built a large sewer, 14 kilometres long and wide enough to drive a car through. It runs under the promenade in Blackpool through Anchorsholme to Fleetwood. The pipe collects all the sewage from Blackpool, Fleetwood and the surrounding areas and brings it to Fleetwood to be treated. Previously all the waste was discharged into the sea before the Fleetwood treatment plant was constructed."..
.. " Manchester Square is an emergency overflow that discharges out to sea during storm conditions. We are permitted to do this by the Environment Agency and are very closely monitored on the frequency we discharge to sea. We only discharge in storm conditions and when the treatment works at Fleetwood is unable to cope with the capacity, and the storm tanks at Bloomfield Road are full. The sea outfall is 2.2 metres in diameter, 1km outfall to sea and can discharge at a rate of up to 12,000 litres per second."

What a surprise I got when I reached the outfall and was greeted by this....
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The excitement and curiosity got the better of me and I had to investigate further (take note of the many footprints already visible in the sand for when I rounded the corner a short while later I was greeted by 2 U'U suits who appeared to be conducting some kind of incident report) and so in I ventured.......

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access on the right hand side through the small hole
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how do these things flap open with water pressure? they weigh an absolute ton..
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There's only so far you can explore when the only light you have is your camera flash.... :mad:
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needless to say is that this place deserves a proper explore to link into the 14km system
was quite impressed that there were no foul smells :cool:

Now that's cool!!!!

Oh yes.

Had my eye on this system for a while now. Love it, love it, love it.

BIG THINGS further up this system.

Cool shots, i work as a cad technician for a coastal and fluvial engineering company so seeing the flap valves in some of the shots is quite funky (ok, geeky...)

THE FOLLOWING POST COMES WITH A TIDE WARNING...

...so, after seeing this, myself and cossienick ventured up here last night for a mooch. very interesting place. thousands of star fish inside here, which was wierd. we managed to lift one of the large flaps, prop it open and we ventured inside. this came to a drop and a proppeller looking device. think cossienick got a pic of this. i got a pic of the tunnel....

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we clambered back out and decided to check the rest of the tunnels. i put my tripod down to sort my bag out. cossienick walked back to the entrance to check the tide.
he came running back. "grab your shit dude, the tide is in". "ok" i replied. "seriously, its fucking in"

we quick marched back to the entrance. the waves were coming in. its ok i thought. we have wellies. within a few steps our feet were wet. the water reached our arses before we reached the shore. 5 mins later, we would have been swimming down to squeeze through the small hole and drowning before reaching shore. we went to asda and bought new pants to drive home in.

i think we will go back when the water isnt there.

Wow. Be careful folks.

Fookin he'll when I first read this report and the tide thing had me worried I hate deep water. Pretty funny story though mate, that must of bin freezing as well.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Lucky, lucky business. Don't want no NWEX brown bread for these adventures. A good reminder to all: plan, prepare, keep yer wits about yer.

Kin el fellas! should have warned you that the reason the gate is off is due to the rough seas at high tide which actually covers the top of the gate! you guys have been pretty lucky, coz f**k me that waters cold! check the tide table and give an hour either side of high water for it to be accessible level,

incidently where the fan looking thing was should have been directly below the pumping station so there should have been a service cover leading upwards into the pump house! which would've been second option should the salty Blackpool water have been nearer neck level! :eek:

sounds like it was certainly an adventure anyways! Glad noone was hurt anyways