Warrington-based United Utilities has announced a massive engineering project in the northwest.

The firm intends to build a 54 kilometre underground pipeline from Liverpool to Bury, which will be able to carry up to 100 million litres of water a day, the equivalent of 4,000 road tankers.

It says the £125 million project, which is expected to take two years to complete, will ultimately help move water supplies around the region.

Ian McAulay, a spokesman for United Utilities, said pipelines on this scale are the "motorways of the water supply network".

"The engineering challenges are big but the project is vital to give us more flexibility in the future during times of drought or when we need to carry out maintenance on other major aqueducts in the region," he stated.

This project is part of United Utilities' plans to meet the challenges of a projected eight per cent rise in the population of the northwest by 2035.

It believes that increased demand will be at its highest in Manchester, Salford and Liverpool.