ON May 23, Severn Trent put on a special event at Bleddfa to name the tunnel boring machine and invited locals to watch it put in place. The tunnel boring machine arrived on site on Sunday night at the end of a 1,000 mile journey from the Herrenknecht Factory in Schwanau, in southern Germany. It has travelled to Bleddfa via Rotterdam, Hull and Ross-on-Wye, with a multi-vehicle escort to clear the way ahead.

On the launch day the first thing done was to name the machine. Children from Presteigne Primary School were asked to name and draw the machine and then everyone working on the site chose the name they liked best. The name chosen was Master Mine by Sol Gilpin, 2nd was Earthworm by Cerys Morgan and 3rd was Marvellous Mole by Lloyd Black. All the children were given prizes and Sol's winning name and drawing was stuck to the machine. Later on over 70 local people, county council officials and others were invited to the site to see the first section of the huge TBM lifted into the air by a crane with a lifting capacity of 1,000 tonnes and then lowered into place deep into the ground.

The TBM consists of three main components, the cutterhead, the thrust module and the tailskin. When it is all fully assembled and in full production mode, it will be pulling 12 sledges behind it stretching back over 100m on which all the ancillary equipment is mounted. In the next few weeks when fully assembled the tunnel boring machine will start its 1,800 metre journey under the hill to the reception pit currently being prepared near Monaughty.

This is one part of works being done by Severn Trent to bypass sections of the Elan Valley Aqueduct that have been showing signs of wear at three sites Bleddfa, Nantmel and Knighton as part of a multi million pound project to secure the delivery of water to Birmingham for years to come.