Northern Divers hit white water for Olympic course

NORTHERN Divers, a Yorkshire company which specialises in underwater civil engineering, has completed work for British Waterways as part of the £4.6m redevelopment of the Tees Barrage International White Water canoe course.

The sports facility at Stockton-on-Tees will be used as a training site location for next summer’s Olympics and has been redesigned to include a new main course and a second shorter course.

The Hull-based company was called in to replace 25 blank steel outlet covers in the water pool at the bottom of the course to assist with essential maintenance .

“We had seven divers working every low water for three days to replace the steel blanks over outlets from the pool to the River Tees due to the complication from positive pressures,” said John Sparrowe, managing director.

“The course takes water from the Tees from above the tidal barrier and is then circulated back to the top of the course via two large archimedes screws enabling the same water to be recycled.”

The new outlets allow water from the pool to flow back out into the Tees below the Barrage to enable a fresh supply to be added when required.