Engineering and business consultant High-Point Rendel has won a contract to find a solution to an ash disposal problem in North Yorkshire.

The firm was commissioned to design a scheme to infill a pit at the site of an ash disposal scheme and help protect a National Grid electricity pylon.

The transmission tower is in a pit used for emergency ash lagoons at Gale Common near Eggborough Power Station in north Yorkshire.

The lagoons -- which are used to dispose of pulverised fuel ash (PFA) from Eggborough and nearby Ferrybridge Power Station -- are now nearly full, and the pit is to be filled to improve access to the tower and complete landscaping.

An innovative use of rigid urethane foam is being considered to protect the transmission tower as the pit is infilled and from future corrosion when the lower sections of the tower are buried.

High-Point Rendel, which has worked with the power station owners, now British Energy, at Gale Common for many years, is designing the infilling and providing cost estimates, specifications and technical assessment of tenders.

The work is expected to start in March 2004 and last around three months.