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

First up i did check tide times high was 10.50pm so entering around 8ish just for a quick look around thaught would of had plenty of time.
Apparently not lol. 9pm water nearly upto the second set of gates inside, now thats nearly 2 hours before high so ir was GTFO,so yer watch out.
Having said that pipe on left 1.5m Round metal pipe only goes a short way turns right then drops near vertical down abot 15ft to a sort of 2m diameter water turbine or something like that.
Will put a pic up wen home .

Today's lesson - High tide doesn't happen at the flick of a switch!

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It does look like a good mooch though!! Maybe a visit as the tides just gone out?

Did you get round it all then, or is there still more to explore?

:thumbs

still more to explore. but guessing it might just be more of the same.

obviously check the tide times. we did, but just under-estimated how quick, and how high the tide comes in.

being trapped inside the tubes, with those super heavy doors, whilst filling with water is not a situation to get in to.

My advice for this is to do more research into the system.

There are a couple of HUGE features further upstream (as it were). Safer to drop in close to these than to walk the length with the tide chasing you.

However, once you're passed the giant flaps, you should be safe from drowning unless the sewers are overflowing.

The fan thing.
 

The fan thing that you guys talk about is actualy a pump
and the fan things are blades to chop up sewage and rags.
The service hatch you talk about is the lid to the pump shaft to be able
to lift the pump out through the building, it's held down around the tube
at the top with forty 36mm bolts and is sealed with a gasket so it could not
be used as a way out. Please keep it in mind that these things are. Set to go off
automatically and when they do they pump out the sewage at a rate you wouldn't believe, that's what lifts the big flaps.
I know all this because I actually put them things in and remove them now and again for servicing. Be careful guys that's a very dodgy area.
Keep up the good work but play safe.

thanks for the heads up zed, any jobs going at your place? ;)

Hello Dubstyle, I guess I am lucky I get to go in all the kinds of places you guys love, if you could get past the pumps which you can't, it opens up into a massive chamber, it's ace in there. I know that station and others atoms there like the back of my hand as I have been lucky enough to work in this kind of game for many years now. I never get fed up with my job I love it.

Zed man........ Get a camera down there at work fella!!!!
We would all be very appreciative! :whip

I think zed man needs to share some info on some epic stuff for us to photo round the same area!

Very very good information, thanks for the input. Anything else you can add to help us out or to keep us away from danger? We dont often get guys in your position willing to help us out!

Welcome in also!

I will try my best supakev but they don't like it. I have got some photos somewhere I will dig em out and try and post them on the site. Can anybody tell me how to do that please?

Upload them them to photobucket then copy the img code , it will apear at the side of the photo and paste it on to a post.