Lincolnshire Fen: North Kyme Pumping Station
The Brief
Few stretches of England have contested water as long as the Lincolnshire fen at North Kyme. The Romans cut the Car Dyke along the marsh’s edge; the Victorians drained the parish under an Act of 1840; and at Dogdyke, a steam engine of 1858 still stands in working order. Draining this land is never finished — only handed down from one generation of engineers to the next.
North Kyme is an intermediate pumping station discharging into a Board-maintained drain. The replacement needed to move land-drainage flows reliably, meet modern environmental standards, sit on a shallow civil structure, and require minimal attention for decades. Long life, low fuss.
The Solution
Working with FishFlow Innovations, ACE installed two enclosed composite screws — each 1.6 metres across, rated at 0.40 m³/s. Moulded from vinyl ester glass-fibre composite with no steel in the drum or vanes, they carry an eighty-year design life with corrosion removed as a maintenance concern.
The sealed drum closes off leakage entirely, so each pump, stationary with the brake applied, becomes a line of flood defence in its own right. This allowed shorter, more energy-efficient assemblies. Each unit was built and balanced off-site and installed in a single crane lift, minimising programme risk.
Running at very low speeds, fish mortality approaches zero. ACE delivered the station complete: a Form 4 Type 2 MCC housing Schneider variable-speed drives with passive harmonic filters, keeping total harmonic distortion to 10% or below, all housed in a purpose-built GRP kiosk.
The Result
ACE’s two enclosed Archimedean screw pumps deliver exactly what the Witham First Internal Drainage Board required: reliable performance, low maintenance, environmental compliance, and longevity. With no steel in the drum or vanes, an eighty-year design life, and a sealed drum that doubles as flood defence, this is far more than a like-for-like replacement. The Romans, the Victorians, and ACE have each taken a hand to this fen — on the present evidence, this latest chapter should stand for a good while yet.
Achievements
01
60-80 year design life
02
High level flood defence
03
Full package delivered
04
Single-lift: pre-fabricated and balanced off-site
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