Buckshole reservoir safety works

The three reservoirs within Alexandra Park were built in Victorian times to supply water to Hastings. Buckshole Reservoir, the largest of the three and the last to be built is now more than 150 years old.

The reservoirs no longer supply drinking water, but they are still an asset to the town, providing a focus for fishing, recreation and wildlife.

Work on Buckshole Reservoir to bring it up to the Environment Agency's latest safety standards has now been completed. Landscaping work to restore the area around the reservoir will be completed in the spring when the weather and ground conditions improve.

The improvement works included:

• A new outlet pipe, to be built within the existing overflow structure, which will allow the reservoir to be drained in a timely manner should a problem with the dam ever be detected.
• A new spillway channel to replace the original and aged structure which has now deteriorated beyond economic repair.  The new channel will be larger than the original to ensure it can cope with and protect the dam from the largest predicted floods.

The outflow from Buckshole Reservoir is controlled by multi-level weirs at the upstream end of the siphon overflow chamber, which was built as part of work in 1985.

The main objective of the 2022 work was to protect the embankment dam structure from damage and possible failure during extreme flood events. This has been achieved by increasing the capacity of the spillway channel downstream of the 1985 structure. However, he increased capacity of the channel does not mean more water will be passed downstream - this will continue to be controlled by the weirs that were built upstream in 1985.

The footpaths that were closed during the works have now been reopened.