Lake de-silt continues for Kew Royal Botanical Gardens at Wakehurst Place

Works to de-silt the lake at Wakehurst Place are progressing well with decades of silt and debris being removed from the lake bed by PHB.

Given the access constraints of the site for plant and machinery, the silts are being pumped 500 metres up through the gardens and SSSI woodlands through a 6” pipeline and into specially constructed lagoons for storage and dewatering.

Depths of silt in the lake have exceeded 1.5 metres and are being fed into a Sweepax maserating pump by a team of excavators. The specialist pumping equipment has been supplied by Andrews-Sykes and includes their Orion 135hp booster to deliver the silts up the massive 65m of vertical head to the lagoon site.