A MAN from Prestwich is moving the River Mersey - literally!

Project manager Matt Goode is overseeing work to shift the flow of the famous river by about 40 metres.

Over many years, the fast-flowing water has eroded land as it navigates a bend south of Didsbury and north of Cheadle, near Manchester.

It’s now getting close to an underground high-pressure gas pipe nearby, so Cadent plans to take steps to move the river back to where it should be.

Mr Goode, who works for Cadent, said: “This is nature doing what nature does.

“Over the 50 years our pipe has been there, the river has gradually moved, as it erodes the land to one side.

"This river bank remediation project will see us move it back to where it once was, away from our pipe.” Mr Goode is project manager, overseeing the work of civil engineering contractor specialists Cain Bio-Engineering and Northern Divers.

The work is still in its design phase and involves considerable consultation.

The outline plan is to excavate back the original channel of the Mersey, and then construct a dam that would force the river back along its former path.

Mr Goode, who lives in Prestwich and is based at Cadent’s centre in Mersey Road North, Hollinwood, is liaising with a range of stakeholders — from local landowners and Manchester and Stockport councils, to the Environment Agency and National Grid.

He said: “There’s lots to consider in a job like this — for example, there’s salmon in this water and nesting birds in the location, and there are also pylons carrying 400kw of electricity — so project managing means taking all of this into account.”

Mr Goode’s work has been recognised by the Pipeline Industries Guild, winning the Midlands branch heat of the Sir John Parker Presentation Competition, which is for young professionals in the pipelines sector.

He said: “This is really recognition for Cadent as a whole.”

Cadent identified the problem through its ongoing helicopter surveys of their network of 131,000km of gas pipes.