Academy will dig out young talent

22 October 2008

London mayor, Boris Johnson, has announced plans to establish a ‘tunnelling academy’, alongside the London Tideway Tunnel project, in a bid to bridge the skills gap in engineering at this week’s Future of London conference.

Thames Water’s plan to drill a 20-mile tunnel directly beneath the Thames to deal with serious overflows from London’s antiquated sewer network, one of the most ambitious infrastructure plans since Victorian times, will generate 28,000 jobs.

Mr Johnson said: ‘We will need an extra 20,000 engineers in London and to supply this, we will be financing a tunnelling academy through the LDA and TfL so, for the first time for generations, we will be able to say to our sons and daughters there is a future in engineering in this country.’

He also promised there would be continued growth in London despite the economic downturn Planned major public infrastructure projects across the city were ‘extremely timely and welcome’, Johnson added. ‘What these projects will do in the short term, is generate jobs and growth at a time of hardship.’

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