The River Roding Project

At the end of May 2026, the project reached another major milestone. The embankment is built to its full height and it meets the control structure on either side. This means that our contractors, BAM can progress other elements of the work - including the access track along the top of the embankment, reservoir spillways and drainage.

There is further work to be done to the control structure before it will impound water and provide a flood risk benefit to communities downstream, but this major milestone means this target is another step closer.

Our contractors BAM have now restarted work on site following the winter closedown. This started with getting the haul road across the site ready, before the earthwork contractors returned to complete work on construction of the earth embankment. This means that you will see considerable more activity on site over the next few weeks, including vehicle movements as clay starts to be transported across site to where it is needed to build the embankment.

Providing the weather remains favourable, construction of the earth embankment is expected to be completed within 2 months and focus will then shift to other activities - such as installation of the permanent access track across the new structure. We will provide another update once the embankment work is complete.

Our contractors, BAM, completed the sheet piling work on Friday 1 November, so there will be no more noise or disruption from this element of the work.

We then focussed on the earth embankment construction and have completed as much of this as possible whilst the weather remained favourable. The embankment is now around 25% complete on the east side, and around 50% complete on the west side. We have now stopped this work for the winter and will be returning in February 2026 (weather dependent).

There will be BAM presence on site over the winter and smaller activities such as landscaping, access maintenance, environmental and site monitoring will continue.

On 11 September 2025 the project reached a major milestone. We removed an earth bund at the upstream end of the new river channel which allowed the river to flow through the new channel and control structure for the first time.

We achieved this by:

• regrading the river banks downstream of the new control structure.
• carrying out a fish rescue on the (now old) Roding channel to ensure that no fish were left stranded when the flows were diverted to the new channel.
• putting in an earth bund on the (now old) Roding channel to stop the flow of water.
• removing an earth bund at the upstream end of the new river channel to enable the water to flow down the new channel and into the wetland for the first time.

This marks a major milestone for the project as the river being diverted through the control structure enables construction of the whole of the earth embankment. The embankment will cross over the old Roding channel to meet the control structure.

Whilst the river is now flowing through the control structure on its new route, it is important to note that the project does not provide flood risk benefit to communities yet. This is because elements of the control structure still need to be completed once the embankment is in place - at which point it will be able to impound (hold back) water.

To see photos of the river diversion taking place click here: Photo Gallery | The River Roding Project | Engage Environment Agency