Case Studies

Ceramic membrane technology and modular build deliveries innovative solution that provides significant benefits and efficiencies

Embsay Water Treatment Works is a standalone 24 ML/d water treatment works operated by Yorkshire Water (YW) and located in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, providing clean water to over 15,000 people in Skipton and surrounding areas. The existing works comprises of clarifiers, rapid gravity filters and a chlorine contact tank with associated chemical dosing. […]

Enhancing South West Water’s visibility of consented spill events from their sewage network across Devon and Cornwall

WINEP bathing waters project in North Devon to reduce the risk of stormwater overwhelming outlying pumping stations

Installation of the UK’s first containerised mid-process hydroelectric turbine on a wastewater treatment works

Design and construction of new ‘online’ pumping station and flood storage aquagreen to improve resilience in the Humber region

Phase 2: The construction and commissioning of a new £10m fish pass on the River Trent at Colwick Country Park in Nottinghamshire

Part of South West Water’s WaterFit Programme of works that champions the rivers, seas and wider environment of the south-west

Grade II listed structure that underwent refurbishment to address safety concerns in the draw-off tower and spillway

Successful delivery of a £1.8m wastewater pumping station in the Greenisland Drainage Catchment to improve water quality in Belfast Lough

Construction of a new EBPR process stream operating in a UCT configuration and updating existing assets to improve the quality of the effluent

The provision of 30m3 of offline stormwater storage in Honiton, Devon

Successful delivery of a £7m project to reduce risk of out-of-sewer flooding, capitalising on the benefits of collaboration through NEC4 Option C Contract

The Red Doles Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) neighbours the Huddersfield Broad Canal and a Network Rail bridge. The CSO serves a catchment covering approximately 3.8km2, predominantly consisting of residential properties and accommodating around 8512 people. The majority of the Fartown area of Huddersfield drainage operates as a combined system, with Red Doles receiving flows from […]

Clean water infrastructure pipe spray lining

Delivery of complex civils to intercept combined sewer overflows and divert into the Thames Tideway Tunnel

West Hallington Reservoir is a Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) asset situated 1km to the northeast of the village of Colwell in the Tynedale district of Northumberland. The reservoir was constructed between 1884 and 1890 for Newcastle & Gateshead Water Company for the purpose of municipal water supply. The reservoir was built adjacent to the earlier […]

Nature-based solution trial for phosphorus removal in Honiton, Devon

In 2015, Bournemouth Water was acquired by Pennon Group, who already owned South West Water (SWW). Alderney WTW, located in the north of Bournemouth, is a strategically important water treatment works that supply high quality drinking water to approximately 375,000 customers – nearly 75% of the homes and businesses in Bournemouth Water’s operational area. Alderney […]

Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA) is delivering one of the largest infrastructure projects in AMP7; a new water main network, hundreds of kilometres long, which will allow Anglian Water to move water around the region from areas of surplus to areas of deficit, future-proofing supply to customers. The network is being constructed in 11 […]

An integral part of NI Water’s £18m Ards North Wastewater Improvement Project to improve the quality of bathing waters in this scenic part of the Ards Peninsula

The Ards Peninsula is a scenic area in County Down, situated on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland. It separates Strangford Lough from the north channel of the Irish Sea and its coastal towns and villages are popular with day trippers and caravanners alike. By 2020, the wastewater treatment works serving the villages of Carrowdore […]

September 2022 saw the successful completion of a new kilometre outfall pipeline in Arklow, Ireland. The lack of wastewater treatment facilities in Arklow resulted in untreated wastewater being discharged directly to the Avoca River. The design and construction of a new wastewater treatment plant and long sea outfall was required to improve the water quality […]

Ballygowan is a small village situated in County Down, within the Ards & North Down Borough Council area. The towns of Comber and Saintfield are both approximately 4 miles to the north-east, and to the south respectively, with the city of Belfast 7 miles north-west. The 2021 Census indicates that the population of Ballygowan is […]

Beckton Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is the United Kingdom’s largest STW serving a population equivalent of over four million. The AMP7 project is a major £185m investment to increase the site’s treatment capacity for growth, by a population equivalent of 200,000, by extending the existing activated sludge plant (ASP). Beckton STW will receive stormwater from […]

Birds Park Reservoir is no longer used for water supply and is enjoyed by the community for recreation. Constructed around 1850, the dam is an earth embankment, 45m long and 13.8m high, perched above a residential area near Kendal, Cumbria. There are no historical drawings, and limited site investigation data was available but it was […]

Bourn Reservoir is an above-ground reservoir complex located approximately five miles outside Cambridge, England. Only one tank was still operational after the other two were removed from service due to natural degradation. A new tank was required to meet demand from large-scale developments in the supply area. A review was conducted to ascertain the total […]

Dawlish is a traditional seaside town on the south coast of Devon, approximately 12 miles south of Exeter and is a popular holiday and day trip destination. South West Water (SWW) and Galliford Try’s objective was to ensure that the bathing water quality did not deteriorate within the next 20 years by ensuring that there […]

The Burnley integrated catchment scheme is one of United Utilities’ (UU) largest AMP7 projects with a value of £77m. The project is being delivered by UU’s construction delivery partner (CDP) framework by Advance-plus, a joint venture between MWH Treatment, J Murphy & Sons (JMS) and Stantec UK. The project commenced in 2020 and through two […]

Located south of the village of Chilton Foliat and north-west of the town of Hungerford there is an existing sewage treatment works (STW) that serves a population of approximately 400 people. The works discharge into the River Kennet, one of England’s most important chalk streams which is home to an extensive range of rare plants […]

Clough Bottom Impounding Reservoir (IR) is an earth-fill embankment reservoir located on the eastern edge of the West Pennine Moors, around 4km north east of Rawtenstall, Lancashire. The reservoir is currently used for public water supply and compensation flows. The reservoir was formed by the construction of an earth embankment across the Whitewell Brook and […]

Deephams Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is located in Edmonton, North London. In November 2018, Thames Water Utilities Limited (TWUL) issued take-over to the AECOM, Murphy, and Kier (AMK) joint venture for the replacement of the entire sewage treatment stream. The project increased the treatment capacity to 989,000 population equivalent and met the new final effluent […]

NI Water’s Derg Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located in the north-west of Northern Ireland and produces on average 20 Ml/day, supplying water to approximately 10,000 homes to a wide area including Castlederg, Strabane, Omagh and their associated rural areas.  In recent years there have been multiple exceedances of the pesticide, MCPA [(4-Chloro-2-methylphenoxy) acetic acid], […]

Using the MS1800 for the on-line detection of hydrocarbon contamination in a municipal sewerage system

The Don Regulators comprise three strategically important regulator gates on the River Rother that are owned, operated and maintained by the Environment Agency (EA). The purpose of the regulators is to reduce the risk of flooding to settlements within the Don catchment, by attenuating flows in the River Rother. JBA-Bentley, in a joint venture relationship, […]

In 2019, Wessex Water launched a £51 million project to upgrade the Durleigh Water Treatment Centre (WTC) in Somerset, which had reached the end of its operational life. This project was crucial in maintaining the delivery of high-quality drinking water to a population of 44,500 and was part of the company’s long-term water supply strategy […]

The water network in the western end of the Thames Valley Supply Area is dominated by local borehole water sources. Over time, population growth coupled with general environmental drivers to reduce reliance on groundwater sources in sensitive chalk stream areas, Thames Water has sought to improve supply resilience and deployable output by linking local sources […]

Finham STW, situated near Coventry in the West Midlands, is Severn Trent’s fifth largest wastewater treatment works and treats over 115 megalitres of effluent a day from half a million people. The works processes indigenous sludge on site as well as accepting exports from local, satellite sites, producing final effluent, ‘cake’ and biogas as outputs. […]

A design & build collaboration to develop a Welsh Government funded flood alleviation solution for the village of Glenboi

Goddards Green Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is a Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) located near Burgess Hill in West Sussex. The catchment serves the towns of Burgess Hill, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint and surrounding villages, providing for 54,789 people. The project implements an innovative approach to mitigate the likely odour from the processes at the WwTW to prevent […]

In the summer of 2020, the water industry was set a challenge by its regulators to identify ways to support the country’s green economic recovery from Covid-19. Severn Trent responded with a number of proposed programmes, including Decarbonising Water Resources (DWR), the subject of this paper. The objective of the DWR programme was to provide […]

Guildford Borough Council (GBC) are progressing with the development of approximately 41 hectares of brownfield land located along the west bank of the River Wey as it runs through central Guildford and north through Slyfield Industrial Estate. Guildford Sewage Treatment Works (STW) lies within this land and requires relocation in order to enable the development […]

Hampton Loade WTW treats raw water from Chelmarsh Reservoir, located approximately two miles north-west of the site. The reservoir is supplied by the river intake pumps located within the intake building immediately adjacent to the River Severn. The maximum flow that can gravitate to the works from the reservoir is 130-135 megalitres/day (MLD). To increase […]

Located 5 miles south of Chelmsford, Hanningfield Water Treatment Works (WTW) is the largest works operated by Essex & Suffolk Water (ESW). The WTW, which has a peak output of 220 MLD, draws water from the 26,000 ML Hanningfield Reservoir to supply a large part of south Essex. The washwater system is over 50 years […]

Improving water quality in the River Medlock by installing new powered screens at existing sites in Oldham, Greater Manchester

South West Water’s (SWW) Hingston Down Reservoir site is located on an exposed Cornish hilltop and contains two service reservoirs which supply nearby villages with potable water. Originally there was only one reservoir at the site and there was no way of being able to take it out of service for cleaning, so a Braithwaite […]

Forming part of Southern Water’s (SW) Hampshire supply region, the Isle of Wight (IoW) is located just off the south coast of England and is divided into two water distribution zones (WDZ), namely IoW North and IoW South. The IoW South comprises major towns of Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor with multiple villages and more […]

King George V Reservoir (KGV) is an operational raw water storage reservoir located in the Lea Valley at Walthamstow and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with restricted access. It is controlled by Thames Water’s Lea Valley/North London Abstraction Group based at Coppermills AWTW. Seepage through the clay core at the north-east of […]

Kinnerley WTW is located in rural Shropshire, approximately 10 miles north-east of Shrewsbury. The site treats around 4 Ml/d from a single groundwater source, after which it is pumped to Pant DSR to supply. The existing water treatment process on site includes two aeration towers, chlorine gas, three iron and manganese pressure filters, a balance […]

Knostrop Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is Yorkshire Water’s largest wastewater treatment site, serving a population equivalent of 990,000 and a full flow to treatment (FFT) of 5600 l/s. The WINEP Programme requires Yorkshire Water (YW) to achieve compliance with the new Total Phosphorus and Total Iron permit levels at 80 wastewater treatment works, including Knostrop. […]

Essex and Suffolk Water, part of Northumbrian Water Ltd, supplies drinking water to 794,000 properties. Maintaining a supply to those customers requires the distribution of up to 670 Ml/d of high-quality drinking water. In Essex, the two primary treatment works are Hanningfield WTW, a physio-chemical works near Chelmsford and Layer WTW, a biological works, near […]

Lee Road Water Treatment Plant (WTP) provides approximately 70% of Cork City’s total treated water supply. Water is taken from the River Lee, treated and then pumped to reservoirs in the north-west of the city through a system of rising mains. Water is distributed to consumers throughout the city via a network of gravity distribution […]

Littlehempston is a large complex potable water treatment works located near Totnes, South Devon, which has multiple river and reservoir sources. It supplies circa 78,000 properties to an area that includes Torbay, Newton Abbot and Kingsbridge. The original treatment works comprises flat bottom clarifiers (FBC) and rapid gravity filters (RGF), with an additional process stream […]

Located near Maerdy in South Wales, Lluest Wen Reservoir is a Category A Large Raised Reservoir as defined by the Reservoirs Act 1975. The reservoir is impounded by a 200m long, 25m high earth embankment dam across the Rhondda Fach River and currently impounds 1.07Mm3 of water. Construction of the reservoir was originally completed in […]

Llyn Bran is located in Denbighshire, north-east Wales and was a natural lake that was raised in 1899 by a concrete dam. The reservoir was used to supply water to the North Wales Hospital in Denbigh. The hospital closed in 1995 and Llyn Bran has not been used for drinking water since. As part of […]

NI Water has undertaken a highly sustainable project which replaces wastewater treatment infrastructure for the catchment of Loughries, a small village close to the shores of Strangford Lough. Due to its age, an increasing load from the village, and ever-tightening discharge limits being applied, the existing works was in danger of breaching consents. The project involved […]

Lower Barden Reservoir is the lower of two reservoirs located near Bolton Abbey within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The reservoir is an impounding reservoir with a crest length of approximately 640m and a maximum height of 28m with a capacity of 2.23 Mm3. The overflow is located on the right-hand side of the embankment […]

Marhamchurch is a small village around 2.4km south of Bude and has a population of just over 800. Sewage from this village is pumped to a nearby large sewage treatment works which processes the waste from Bude and the surrounding area. The existing Marhamchurch Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) was built around 50 years ago and […]

Budleigh Salterton is a seaside town on the coast in east Devon, at the start of the World Heritage Jurassic Coast, with a population of just over 5,000 people. It has been described as a picturesque town with a two-mile pebble beach for the hardy swimmers braving the seas for a dip in the beautiful […]

Over recent years, Derby’s city centre has suffered historic river and surface water flooding. In partnership with the Environment Agency, Derby City Council sponsored the £8m Mill Fleam Pumping Station project; a key piece of flood defence infrastructure that barriers off and then over-pumps Markeaton Brook when the River Derwent is in flood. In November […]

North-west of Nottingham and separated by the River Erewash, two of Severn Trent’s sewage treatment works are situated within 2.5km of each other; part of the legacy of the times of the public statutory undertakers. Heanor Milnhay STW in Derbyshire has a dual-stream process, with part of the flows going through trickle filters and the […]

During the industrial revolution, pollution and weir constructions in Yorkshire resulted in the rapid decline of river standards and loss of once abundant species such as salmon, trout, and grayling. The rivers were wiped of ecological habitats and the number of species found in the river declined by 83%. In 1999 Yorkshire Water installed the […]

The Rivers Lugg and Wye have been identified as having high levels of phosphorus, which is causing eutrophication of these watercourses. Norton Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) discharges treated final effluent to the Norton Brook, a tributary of the River Lugg. Presteigne WwTW discharges treated final effluent directly into the River Lugg downstream of the Norton […]

Northumbrian Water’s Ovingham Raw Water Pumping Station (RWPS) is an abstraction station located on the north bank of the River Tyne in South Northumberland between the towns of Wylam and Ovingham. The station provides raw water from the River Tyne to Horsley Water Treatment Works (WTW) and the Great Southern Reservoir at Whittle Dene WTW. […]

Northern Ireland Water’s Cushendall Water Pumping Station (WPS) is housed on the outer perimeter of Dundonnell Water Treatment Works (WTW) situated on the outskirts of Cargan village in the middle of County Antrim. The WPS solely supplies Parkmore Service Reservoir (SR) with potable drinking water, which in turn gravity feeds three other downstream SRs (Knockans, […]

Potters Way, located in the Fengate area of Peterborough, is a recent housing development next to the A1139. The development was built on the grounds of the former Fengate Water Recycling Centre (WRC) which closed in 1988 following the construction of the Flag Fen WRC. In early December 2018, Anglian Water became aware of the […]

Resource recovery for agricultural fertiliser use, while protecting the water quality in Dublin Bay

The River Lyd Pumping Station is consented to abstract up to 40 Mld from its intake source at Lifton, Devon during November through to March, pumping raw water approximately 7km to Roadford Reservoir. The pumping station was last used on a full operational basis during the mid-1990s and the original equipment had remained in a […]

United Utilities and Managed Service Provider (MSP) Costain have delivered improvements to the existing spillway at Rivington Upper Impounding Reservoir in Lancashire. The team worked collaboratively, undertaking a complex construction programme in challenging conditions, while managing the operational needs of the reservoir site and popular recreational area. The main objective was to upgrade the existing […]

Roundhill Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is a large wastewater treatment site in the Severn Trent region serving Stourbridge and the surrounding area. It treats a flow to full treatment (FFT) of 1781 l/s and a population equivalent (PE) of around 300,000. The works was extensively rebuilt around the year 2000, with the large rectangular biofilters […]

This project was commissioned by UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR), as part of their efforts to address one of the 12 Big Questions the UK Water Industry is facing, “How do we achieve 100% compliance with drinking water standards (at point of use) by 2050?”. Today, no more than 10% of the total incoming flows […]

Reverse Osmosis (RO) will play an essential role in helping the water industry tackle the numerous environmental and sustainability challenges it faces. Global climate change is causing increased stress on water resources around the world, and this means more reliance on desalination of brackish and sea water sources to provide drinking water security. The technology […]

Seedy Mill WTW treats surface water from the Blithfield Reservoir. The existing supply to the works is gravity-fed up to a maximum of 85 MLD. Additional yield could be provided by utilising three in-line booster pumps located at Nethertown. In addition, there are two individual borehole contributions at Seedy Mill and Trent Valley, which can […]

Section 101a of the Water Industry Act requires that sewerage providers deliver and fund first time sewerage (FTS) schemes where the current drainage for two or more properties is unsatisfactory and where a public solution is viable. Unsatisfactory drainage includes situations where environmental or amenity problems caused by uncontrolled discharges from septic tanks or cess […]

To ensure compliance with tighter Environment Agency permits for phosphorus removal, the number of phosphorus reduction schemes have quadrupled since AMP5 and is seen by some as one of the biggest challenges ever to face the water industry. The Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) is a programme of actions that water companies are required […]

St Augustines Road is a busy thoroughfare in Chesterfield linking the town to Matlock and the south-eastern edge of the Peak District. Lying within the Yorkshire Water (YW) waste catchment area, the road is steep in its nature with gradients often exceeding 7%. Due to the local hydraulic catchment and topography, during heavy rainfall events […]

Upgrading the existing water treatment process with GAC and UV treatment to meet long term taste and odour targets

The village of Stratton, which is located just outside Bude, Cornwall, used to have its own sewage treatment works, but this was replaced by a sewage pumping station (SPS) many years ago when it was decided that Bude and the local villages would have all their sewage treated at a single, large treatment works at […]

The Stroud Sewerage Strategy is a major investment by Severn Trent which is required to overhaul of the existing sewer network by installing almost 3.5km of enlarged sewer pipe, separating surface water from the sewage network, creating additional storage with smart controls to hold stormwater back during large storm events before returning it to the […]

With approximately 60km of new 800/900mm pipeline required to replace the existing potable water mains, some of which are over 150 years old, the Tees and Central Strategic Pipeline will directly improve water quality, network resilience and operability within the Tees Network. The pipeline will serve approximately 50,000 properties and link a number of strategic […]

South West Water’s Thankes Park Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) is situated in a housing estate, close to Thankes Lake along the River Tamar in a busy public park with extremely limited access. The park has been undergoing renovation and development by locals who upkeep the maintenance to stimulate interest in its historic and heritage value […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel Project is a 25 km (16 mi) combined sewer under construction under the tidal section of the River Thames as it runs through London. It will significantly increase the capacity of London’s sewerage system (large sections of which were built in the 19th century), and be able to capture, store and […]

Tophill Low Water Treatment Works (WTW) is a 68 Ml/d water production plant situated in the East Riding of Yorkshire, approximately six miles from Driffield. The works was originally constructed in 1959 and upgraded in the 1990s to the current configuration. The treatment process presently includes pH correction, ozonation, coagulation, DAF clarification, rapid gravity filtration, […]

Ufton Nervet WTW is a groundwater treatment site located in the Kennet Valley Water Resource Zone, to the south of Reading and supplies an ‘island zone’ of approximately 12,000 properties. Groundwater is pumped through pressure filters for iron removal after which chlorine is dosed before flows enter the contact tank, which is a single cell […]

Usk is a large raised reservoir formed by an earth embankment dam, which completed constructed in 1955 with an approximate capacity of 12,268,000m3. The dam is 480m in length, with a maximum height of 31m, and supplies raw water to Bryngwyn Water Treatment Works and as well as providing compensation water to the River Usk, […]

A mine water treatment scheme was implemented at Vivian (Six Bells) by the Coal Authority as an environmental service under its national remediation programme in 2006. Vivian (Six Bells) is located in South Wales, approximately 20km north of Cardiff next to the village of Abertillery. A mine water discharge from the Vivian Shaft was discovered in […]

Warrenpoint is a small town in County Down, situated on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough, approximately 7 miles south-east of Newry. The shared water of Carlingford Lough marks the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Due to its scenic beauty and coastal location, Warrenpoint is popular with day trippers and the town can experience […]

The  Wells to Glastonbury Pipeline will ensure that approximately 13,000 customers have resilience of water supply by providing a secondary source and route to Windmill Hill Reservoir for the purposes of maintaining a safe supply of water to Glastonbury and Street in the event that the primary main from Cheddar WTW to Cooks Corner is […]

Whitehall Distribution Service Reservoir (DSR) is located on Stronsay, one of the north isles in Orkney, located 25 miles to the north of the Orkney mainland. The isle is home to 350 residents and is accessible by public ferry and plane. The Stronsay WTW that feeds the DSR is 300m to the south of the […]

Winchburgh is located five miles west of Edinburgh Airport and the existing wastewater treatment works lies to the south-east of the town, approximately 200m from the nearest residential street. The site access road runs adjacent to the main Glasgow to Edinburgh railway line, the top of the embankment being a couple of metres from the […]

Wooler Water Treatment Works (WTW) is fed by four boreholes and supplies up to 160m3/hour of potable water to Wooler and surrounding areas, including several tourist and semi-residential holiday parks serving over 5,000 people. Seasonal fluctuation in demand can increase turbidity and increase iron and manganese concentrations in the borehole water, particularly when flows are […]

The future of smart water: optimising data using a single, integrated software and analytics platform that enables utilities to maximise existing investments, operate more efficiently, and provide affordable and reliable service to their communities

The Alston Spade Mill Pipeline project forms a key part of the United Utilities AMP7 programme and will ensure that the currently untapped resource at four local reservoirs in Lancashire is utilised and will boost the available water in the network without having an additional impact on the environment. Currently the four reservoirs have been […]

While the east of England is attracting people like no other part of the UK, it is also the driest area of the country – a threat to its success that Anglian Water is determined to overcome. The Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA) comprises, Farrans, Mott MacDonald Bentley, Costain and Jacobs, who are delivering one of […]

Increasing the environmental credentials through effective wastewater treatment prior to its discharge into nearby natural environments

United Utilities, through two major capital projects, is investing over £25m at Audley and Alsager Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTWs), between 2020 and 2025. This is to meet new regulatory permits under the Environment Agency’s Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP). Audley and Alsager WwTWs are located in East Cheshire and serve a population of 9,000 […]

Built in the 1970s, Ballykelly WwTW was designed to serve a population of just under 8,000. However, the closure of the nearby army barracks in 2008 meant the population was halved to around 3,600, leaving the works both biologically and hydraulically oversized. A hybrid solution, comprising conventional and natural wastewater treatment processes, was designed for […]

Situated close to the shores of Belfast Lough, Belfast Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is Northern Ireland’s largest wastewater treatment plant, serving most of the City of Belfast. It occupies a large 45-acre site within Duncrue Industrial Estate and was designed to treat a domestic and trade population equivalent (PE) of 290,000 with discharge into Inner […]

In recent years the Oxfordshire town of Bicester had undergone significant growth in its population with a further potential growth of 37% in the near future. In late 2019, Thames Water implemented the need for a growth scheme to upgrade various elements of the works to accommodate the forecast population increase. Bicester STW is a […]

Both Blackburn WwTW and Darwen WwTW discharge final and storm effluent to watercourses that are tributaries of the River Darwen, feeding into the River Ribble estuary and the bathing waters of the Fylde coast in the Irish Sea. At Blackburn WwTW, which provides treatment for a population equivalent (PE) of approximately 400,000, construction of the […]

The Burnley Integrated Catchment Scheme is one of United Utilities largest AMP7 projects with a value of over £60m which commenced in 2020. The project is being delivered by Advance-plus, a joint venture between MWH Treatment, J Murphy & Sons and Stantec UK; United Utilities’ framework construction delivery partner (CDP). In UK Water Projects 2021 […]

Improving phosphorus performance and providing treatment resilience using preliminary and primary treatment for an existing MBR on a space constrained site

Enhanced river quality by utilising CoMag® ballasted enhanced settlement technology to remove phosphorus

Cardiff Western District Sewage Pumping Station (CWD SPS) receives sewage from the western area of Cardiff for onward pumping to Cog Moors WwTW via twin rising mains. The pumping station is a strategic asset and is operationally critical to Welsh Water. Failure of this asset would have severe business impacts. During AMP6, a root cause […]

Carlisle WwTW lies within United Utilities’ north Cumbria region. The site is located to the north-west of Carlisle’s city centre, on the banks of the River Eden, and serves the city of Carlisle. The treatment works receives domestic sewage, trade flows, and tankered imports, providing primary and secondary treatment prior to discharge to the River […]

Wessex Water were served under S98 of the Water Industry Act to provide an offsite foul water connection for St Modwen’s new Chippenham Gateway development. This commercial development consists of one million square feet of commercial development and potentially a 150-room hotel. An initial modelling appraisal identified insufficient capacity in the local public sewerage network […]

Clifton Wetlands is a new, integrated constructed wetland (ICW) built at Yorkshire Water’s Clifton Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW), near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. It is a ground-breaking project that utilises a nature based solution to replace conventional wastewater treatment processes with a natural, sustainable and low-carbon alternative. Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency, Stantec UK and […]

Dean Clough Lower Impounding Reservoir (IR) is a Category A, earth-fill embankment reservoir, located approximately 6km north-east of Blackburn in Lancashire. It is currently used to provide storage for public water supply. It was formed by the construction of an earth embankment across the Dean Brook river and is the lower reservoir in a cascade […]

Drumaroad Water Treatment Works (WTW) supplies water to many households throughout Northern Ireland. A 2013 report commissioned by NI Water identified the need for increased potable water storage facilities within the Drumaroad Supply Zone to reduce the risk of water shortages under certain network situations. As part of a £13m investment to modernise the existing water infrastructure […]

Edale Mill Cottages Sewage Treatment Works is located in the heart of the Peak District National Park and serves a small community comprising 29 properties. The asset expired biofilter works and septic tank was process and hydraulically undersized and had been a source of odour complaints for the close neighbours for a number of years. […]

The large industrial town of Ellesmere Port in Cheshire is experiencing population growth, thanks to good transport links and an array of employment opportunities. The local population is set to rise by a further 10% by 2036, to over 76,000, so upgrades to the Ellesmere Port Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) are necessary to cope with […]

As the River Ely flows towards Cardiff Bay, it passes under the A48 Cowbridge Road bridge in Cardiff. During periods of heavy rainfall, debris collects around the bridge’s central pier, reducing the capacity of the bridge and partially blocking the flow of the river. Blockages significantly increase flood risk locally, and once debris has accumulated, […]

As part of the capital investment programme for the years 2020 to 2025 (AMP7), Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) set out to deliver a programme to comply with new regulatory obligations on phosphorus (P) standards (Water Industry National Environment Programme – WINEP) while ‘greening’ their approach to wastewater treatment by prioritising solutions with lowest whole life […]

Faughan Raw Water Pumping Station (RWPS) is located adjacent to the River Faughan and abstracts water from the river. It provides screening by means of bar and band screens before pumping the water via a 30 inch steel raw water pumping main to Carmoney Water Treatment Works (WTW). Carmoney WTW has a minimum daily output […]

Northumbrian Water’s Fontburn Water Treatment Works is located on the outskirts of the Northumberland National Park and produces drinking water for around 50,000 homes in rural and semi-rural areas from Longhorsley and Morpeth, down through Bedlington and as far as North Shields on the River Tyne. The plant produces approximately 20 million litres of water […]

The North Glasgow Integrated Water Management System (NGIWMS), Glasgow’s Smart Canal, has created a pioneering drainage system, incorporating the historic Forth and Clyde Canal to provide one of the first autonomous and dynamically managed surface water systems in the world. The new system is supporting the regeneration of an area in north Glasgow enabling the […]

The town of Hailsham in East Sussex has been experiencing significant housing growth in recent years. To accommodate local housebuilding targets and protect the environment, Southern Water has invested £30m to upgrade the Hailsham North and Hailsham South Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTWs) using innovative technology. Upgrading these works was necessary to comply with a stricter […]

Operated by South Staffs Water (SSW), Hampton Loade Water Treatment Works is located five miles from Bridgnorth, Shropshire and supplies around 700,000 customers. Constructed in the 1960s, the site comprises the treatment works, an intake on the River Severn and a regulating reservoir at Chelmarsh which stores the abstracted river water. The river intake is […]

Hanningfield Water Treatment Works (WTW) is the largest water treatment facility operated in the Essex & Suffolk Water supply area. It has been expanded over numerous phases and is currently in need of improvements to its washwater treatment plant in response to changing influent water quality. Hanningfield WTW draws water from Hanningfield Reservoir which is, […]

Located in Lincolnshire east of Doncaster, Severn Trent’s Haxey-Graizlound Sewage Treatment Works (STW) serves a residential population equivalent of 5,169 with no trade loads within the catchment. The works receives pumped flows from two pumping stations located in the catchment. The present permit is BOD 25mg/l, suspended solids 45mg/l, ammonia 15mg/l with a dry weather […]

Heaton Park Reservoir is located within Heaton Park, approximately 5 miles north of Manchester city centre. The reservoir is over 90 years old and has the capacity of 2,800,000m3 at top water level. The reservoir was previously used to store treated water for the Manchester Ring Main from Haweswater and Thirlmere aqueducts. However, since the […]

The sustainable energy efficient route to advanced digestion and safe biosolids reuse

In the PR19 agreement, water companies were encouraged to provide resolution to long-standing flooding problems being experienced by customers – but allowed a less prescriptive approach on the actual projects defined in the Water Company’s Price Review submission. This new process allowed the water companies a degree of discretion on the number and frequency of […]

In the PR19 agreement, water companies were encouraged to provide resolution to long-standing flooding problems being experienced by customers – but allowed a less prescriptive approach on the actual projects defined in the Water Company’s Price Review submission. This new process allowed the water companies a degree of discretion on the number and frequency of […]

During the 1950s the Holme Sluice Gates structure was constructed, diverting the River Trent from its original path around the Country Park through a newly excavated 80m wide cut channel. The gates are operated by the Environment Agency to maintain navigable river levels within the Nottingham area. At the side of the sluice gates is […]

Advance-plus, a joint venture between MWH Treatment, J Murphy & Sons and Stantec UK, are currently delivering a project at Horwich WwTW on behalf of United Utilities. The project is required to deliver the Environment Agency’s Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) and takes into consideration future population growth based on a 2035 design horizon. […]

Digital solution enables wastewater treatment assets and networks to be optimised in real time

The Johnson Street Storm Overflow (SO) Screening Project in Gateshead was designed to protect the River Tyne from aesthetic pollution improving river quality for the benefit of customers, wildlife and the environment. The SO at Johnson Street was previously a significant unscreened discharge to the River Tyne. The project scope was to screen all spill […]

Keadby Terminal Assisted Outfall (TAO) Pumping Station is at the end of an intricate system of rivers and pumping stations within the low-lying Isle of Axholme catchment in Lincolnshire. It was originally built in the 1940s to discharge water from three parallel channels known as the Three Rivers, into the River Trent during high tides. […]

Northumbrian Water’s Layer Water Treatment Works is located on site at Abberton Reservoir, just outside Colchester in Essex. It is the primal source of water treatment for the reservoir and produces clean drinking water for most of the north Essex region of Essex & Suffolk Water’s operating area, with a designed output of 145 Mld. […]

The brick-built Maiden Lane Reservoir holds 67 million litres of water and supplies a population equivalent of approximately 200,000 people in north-east London.  The reservoir is located in Dartmouth Park which opened to the public in 1972 and is in the London borough of Islington.  The top of the embankment gives an open semi-panorama of […]

Matchams Raw Water Intake is located on a fast-flowing bend on the River Avon. The building was constructed c.1955, and provides a reliable source of raw water to Alderney WTW in Bournemouth. The water depths along the extraction point are typically 3-5m (relative to ‘ordinary’ water levels), with a high river flow rate, circa 3 […]

Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) have recently upgraded their clean water treatment processes at Mosswood and Lumley Water Treatment Works (WTWs). This was to increase quality and resilience of customers’ water supplies by adding ultraviolet (UV) irradiation as an extra barrier of protection. The main innovation of these projects was that they provided a vastly more […]

The North London Heat & Power Project is a ten-year, £1.2 billion programme to replace the current Edmonton energy from waste facility. It is being constructed on behalf of North London Waste Authority at the Edmonton EcoPark and includes a world-class Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), to generate energy from waste in the form of heat […]

There is currently limited ability within the existing Northern Resource Zone to transfer water between WTW demand zones during onerous operating conditions or during a major incident at any one of the WTWs. At Carmoney WTW recent flooding at the River Faughan disabled the abstraction plant and raised the pollution risks associated with the nearby […]

Pant-yr-Eos is a large raised reservoir situated approximately 2km east of Risca in the City of Newport, Monmouthshire. It is impounded by a 27m high, 280m long embankment dam with clay core, and has a storage capacity of approximately 600 Ml. The reservoir was completed in 1878 for provision of water supplies to Newport. To […]

Papplewick Borehole Pumping Station is one of a series of pumping stations constructed during the Victorian period by Thomas Hawksley to provide clean and reliable drinking water to the city of Nottingham. When brought into operation in 1884, the steam pumping station extracted groundwater via two deep wells with an ornate housing constructed over Well […]

The construction of Plas Uchaf Reservoir was completed in 1870. It has an embankment dam that is approximately 15m high, with a puddle clay core. It has a retained capacity of 225,500m3 and a surface area of 3.5ha. The reservoir is formed across a tributary of the River Elwy, with Dolwen Reservoir located approximately 0.7km upstream of Plas […]

The Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) Reservoir is a raw water reservoir in South West London that is owned and operated by Thames Water. The reservoir holds over 19 million litres of water, equating to 10% of the raw water storage for London. Once treated, this provides clean potable drinking water for millions of people across […]

Quin Wastewater Treatment Plant (WwTP) is a small works serving a rural village in County Clare in the west of Ireland. The plant has been operating with a capacity of approx. 650 population equivalent (PE) and is operated and controlled by Irish Water. It discharges into the River Rine which flows to the Shannon Estuary, […]

Ravenhill Avenue is located in south Belfast, close to the city centre. It is a densely populated residential area which has seen recent development of historically industrial sites. The sewer infrastructure in Ravenhill Avenue dates back to the early 20th century, and is therefore in poor condition and undersized to deal with today’s flows. Unfortunately, […]

When constructed in 1979, as part of the Kielder Transfer Scheme, Riding Mill Pumping Station was the largest pumping station in Britain. Abstracting flows from the River Tyne, it enables Northumbrian Water (NWG) to transfer water from Kielder Reservoir to the Derwent, Wear and Tees rivers, whilst supporting the operation of Mosswood WTW. The site […]

Rothbury Sewage Treatment Works is an unmanned Northumbrian Water site located 13 miles north-west of Morpeth, Northumberland. It is on the western valley slope of the River Coquet, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest. The area is a popular year-round holiday destination with several caravan sites within the catchment. The original works dates from […]

The project is located within the residential area of Roundhay in north Leeds, less than 500m from the city’s largest park. The immediate area’s combined system serves in excess of 1900 residential properties and ultimately feeds into the wider Leeds city combined system via Roundhay Park Lane Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO). Hydraulic and water quality […]

Severn Trent is undertaking a programme of rehabilitation works at one its borehole pumping stations (BPS); a groundwater abstraction site consisting of three boreholes (BH1, BH2 and BH3) that provides up to 10 megalitres per day (Ml/d). The three boreholes historically operated in a duty/assist/standby configuration. The site was previously operating at below its intended […]

Minimising energy consumption and CO2 emissions are at heart of all modern water companies and the 2030 net zero carbon emission target can only be achieved if real and direct effort is dedicated to this. The pump efficiency programme described within this article is a major part of the energy efficiency strategy undertaken by South […]

The Eels (England and Wales) Regulations 2009 requires an eel screen to be installed within a diversion structure capable of allowing at least 20m3 of abstraction in a 24-hour period. The focus of this programme is to protect a threatened species of fish, brook lamprey (Lampetra planeri). This eel-like ancient fish is rare in the UK […]

Southwaite is a small rural village in Cumbria about 5 kilometres south of Carlisle. The works treats a population of about 1,000 from the village and the nearby M6 Motorway Services. The existing trickling filter works had reached the end of its asset life and needed to be upgraded. In a first of its kind […]

Stoke Bardolph Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is Severn Trent’s second largest STW and serves a population of c. 620,000. The site is also a major regional sludge centre, meaning it takes a high volume of sludge imports from other sites in the region. Stoke Bardolph has a sludge treatment capacity equivalent to a population of […]

Strongford STW is a major sewage treatment works serving the population equivalent of circa 350,000 from Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent. The site’s sludge treatment facility provides a major centre for regional operations. Based on a forecast increase in population, it was identified that an increase in treatment capacity would be required to accommodate the local growth. […]

Stroud is located in Gloucestershire near the southern boundary of the Severn Trent region between Gloucester and Bristol. The catchment is a mix of urban and rural areas and has a population of circa 67,000. The sewerage network is primarily a combined network with Wallbridge Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) being a key asset close to […]

Swinsty Reservoir is the third in a cascade of four impounding reservoirs in the Washburn Valley, North Yorkshire. The reservoir is impounded by a 490m long, 24m high earth-fill embankment dam with a central puddle clay core, storing 3.94 million cubic metres at top water level. The overflow is located on the right-hand side (RHS) […]

Advanced oxidation technology for the effective treatment of APIs in water and wastewater

In September 2014 Severn Trent received an application under Section 101A of the Water Industry Act to provide first time sewerage to 11 properties in the Nottinghamshire village of Teversal. The outcome of an assessment of the existing sewerage provisions identified environmental or amenity problems at 18 properties and concluded that the provision of a […]

A complex ground improvement scheme has been designed and installed at Earl Pumping Station (EARPS), one of Tideway East’s sites, to enable the excavation and permanent works for the combined sewage overflow (CSO) chamber to be carried out. Challenges such as local contamination, site congestion, costs and time scale had to be overcome by delivering […]

In May 2018 United Utilities appointed Mott MacDonald Bentley (MMB) to deliver an NEC Option A design and construct project for the upgrade of one of their water treatment works (WTW) in the northwest of England. The project scope comprised upgrade of several key treatment processes to ensure compliance with Badenoch and Bouchier performance recommendations […]

As the UK’s largest listed water company, United Utilities aspires to ensure resilience of its network to the effects of climate change, improving the quality of wastewater effluent and providing a reliable and wholesome drinking water supply to its customers. To help drive greater efficiency and innovation in its network, United Utilities appointed Costain as […]

Innovative clean water sludge dewatering at Williamsgate

The River Gwili and River Gwendraeth Fawr in Wales have long suffered from poor water quality, often failing to meet phosphate targets. It was believed that the discharges from seven wastewater treatment works were contributing to deterioration in these two rivers. The need to improve the river water quality was established, but the means to […]

Flood events in the United Kingdom during the summer of 2007 resulted in a loss of essential services and infrastructure not seen since World War II. Reportedly, over half a million people were left without water or electricity supply, with the estimated cost of the events exceeding £3.2 billion. The subsequent Pitt Review commissioned by […]

Wing WTW is part of the Anglian Water network, located in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands. The treatment site originally opened in 1977 and was then expanded to include a granular activated carbon (GAC) system in 1989. Morcott WTW, which was commissioned in 2010, is adjacent to Wing with a combined area […]

The Ynys-y-Fro Reservoir system is situated 1km north-east of High Cross, Newport. The system comprises two reservoirs in cascade: an upper ‘subsiding’ reservoir and a lower ‘old pond’ reservoir. The upper reservoir is immediately upstream of the lower reservoir. The lower reservoir was constructed as an earth embankment dam and was built for the supply […]

Ashbourne Sewage Treatment Works (STW) in Derbyshire serves a population equivalent of 48,259 from both domestic customers and a high trade load, primarily from poultry processing. There has been a works in this location since the 1930s, with existing processes including inlet pumping, 2mm fine screening, grit removal, primary settlement, secondary treatment through an oxidation […]

Barkers Haugh STW receives wastewater from a population of approximately 36,000 people. Due to a ratcheting of the Environment Agency consent in response to population growth (+4000) and a tighter total iron consent of 4mg/l an upgrade of the works was required. A total of £8m was invested to improve the quality of the effluent […]

The small villages of Huisinis and Gobhaig on the Isle of Harris each consist of a few households, but in the summer months the local beach is inundated with campers and campervans. This means that the water demand fluctuates dramatically through the year. The two villages were served by single, basic supplies: Huisinis by a […]

South East Water’s Beenhams Heath WTW serves the surrounding area of Maidenhead and Bracknell. Raw water is pumped via submersible borehole pumps from two off-site locations at Hurley and Waltham. The Hurley flows are directed through a membrane filter before passing through the GACs and combining with the Waltham flows via a collecting tower and […]

Eel populations have seen a sharp decline since the 1980s and whilst the exact reasons are unknown, legislation in the form of the ‘Eels (England and Wales) Regulations 2009’ was brought in to provide eels with extra protections. Within the regulations there is a requirement to prevent eels becoming trapped within raw water abstraction systems. […]

Blackburn WwTW was constructed in the 1960s and principally treats domestic crude sewage from the Blackburn catchment, with two major additional contributions; a high strength trade effluent from the InBev brewery and an ammonia rich return liquor flow from the sludge treatment plant. The key river water quality/water framework directive parameters within the revised environmental […]

The Boston Barrier Tidal Flood Defence Scheme is a £100m project for the Environment Agency, delivered by BMMJV (a joint venture between BAM Nuttall and Mott MacDonald), to reduce the risk of tidal flooding to 14,300 properties and businesses in Boston, Lincolnshire. Boston is located on the east coast of the United Kingdom off The […]

Burnley WwTW serves a domestic population equivalent (PE) of 107,115 plus trade load. The existing site processes include screening and grit removal, primary settlement, activated sludge plant (ASP) with final settlement, nitrifying filters, chemical dosing and storm storage tanks. The sludge treatment facilities include sludge thickening, THP, mesophilic anaerobic digestion (MAD), associated ancillaries and sludge […]

The Ayrshire Strategic Resilience Programme involves the transfer of water from the Milngavie WTW, located north of Glasgow, to the Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire regions southwest of the city, increasing resilience for approximately one million customers. Phase 1 (Amlaird & Gorbals) was completed in 2018 and Phase 2 (Highlees) will be completed in 2021. Phase […]

Carlisle WwTW is in north Cumbria, which is part of United Utilities’ northern area. The site is located to the north west of Carlisle’s city centre, on the banks of the River Eden, and serves the city of Carlisle. The treatment works receives domestic sewage, trade flows, and tankered imports, providing primary and secondary treatment […]

Clabby is a rural village located approximately 5km from Fivemiletown on the border between Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh. The existing wastewater treatment works was constructed in 2002 on the outskirts of the village with a design PE of 271 for a Water Order Consent (WOC) of 23:30 (BOD:SS). With a current PE of 450, the […]

Welsh Water’s sludge strategy is to treat 97% of sludge using advanced anaerobic digestion (AAD) technology. The Cog Moors AAD facility was constructed to supplement the existing facilities at Cardiff and Afan in South Wales along with the recently constructed Five Fords facility in North Wales. AAD gives the benefits of: Meeting the Enhanced Sludge […]

The River Marchnant and River Cownwy lie within the valley of Lake Vyrnwy, Powys. The purpose of this project is to provide environmental flow releases below the Cownwy and Marchnant diversion intakes that supply Vyrnwy Reservoir. The scheme will amend the existing structures to enable a 25/75% proportional flow split, including a Q99 hands-off flow. […]

Craighead WTW is a new water treatment works located on a greenfield site close to the existing works in the north-east of Scotland. The project objective is to improve the treatment of water to the customers of the town of Huntley and surrounding areas. The existing Craighead WTW has reached the end of its economic […]

Dolwen Reservoir is a Category A Large Raised Reservoir as defined under the Reservoirs Act 1975. It is located on a tributary of the River Elwy, 0.7km upstream and north of Plas Uchaf Reservoir, near Abergele, Conwy, Wales. It was constructed in 1905 and has a capacity of approximately 288,185m3. Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water commissioned […]

Wessex Water’s £50m project to upgrade Durleigh Water Treatment Centre (WTC) in Somerset is progressing on programme and within budget, despite some particular challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Work at the site near Bridgwater started in 2019. It is the largest single-value scheme delivered by Wessex Water’s Engineering & Sustainable Delivery (ESD) department and […]

The Evenlode is a headwater of the River Thames. The catchment covers an area of around 30,000 ha, flowing from Moreton-in-Marsh to Eynsham over a distance of more than 75km. It consists of 16 Water Framework Directive (WFD) waterbodies, many of which are failing their targets for phosphate alongside other chemical, hydromorphological and ecological elements. […]

Providing efficient phosphorus removal for the post-IFAS treatment plant at Ellesmere Port WwTW to achieve <0.5mg/l of Total P

Temporary abstraction of groundwater required for infrastructure construction is now a licensable activity in the UK. This article presents a series of case studies describing techniques to manage and conserve the groundwater resources beneath and surrounding a construction site, so assisting the licensing process.

The Haweswater Aqueduct (HA) was constructed by the Manchester Water Corporation between 1935 and 1955 to provide water from Haweswater Reservoir to Heaton Park Reservoir in Manchester. The aqueduct was initially designed to convey 105 million gallons per day to allow for future increase in demand and is constructed of 8’ 6” concrete lined tunnels […]

The NEP Quality drivers for the Southern Water’s Hawkhurst South WTW are to meet the new iron and total phosphorus discharge permit limits by 31/12/2021, a tightened ammonia permit by 31/03/2025, and to maintain compliance with all aspects of the current discharge permit at lowest whole life cost. In addition, the population equivalent is set […]

In recent years, phosphorus discharge limits have been tightened to improve the surface water quality, particularly to address eutrophication issues. Before 2015, only a small number of sites in the UK had a total phosphorus (TP) permit as low as 1 mg/l under the Habitats Directive. Since then, TP permits have been continuously tightened in order to achieve […]

Heigham Water Treatment Works (WTW) has supplied clean water to the City of Norwich for more than 100 years. The treatment works supplied an average 42 Ml/d of water into the Norwich Public Water Supply Zone serving a population in excess of 200,000. The £36m scheme was the largest capital investment project within Anglian Water’s […]

In the PR19 agreement, water companies were encouraged to provide resolution to long-standing flooding problems being experienced by customers – but allowed a less prescriptive approach on the actual projects defined in the Water Company’s (WCo’s) Price Review submission. This new process allowed WCo’s a degree of discretion on the number and frequency of flooding […]

In the 1850s, London’s population was approximately two million. In 1858, predicting population growth, Sir Joseph Bazalgette constructed a combined sewerage system collecting both wastewater from homes and businesses, and rainwater run-off, to serve a population equivalent of four million. Now, with London’s population approaching nine million, the sewerage network can become overloaded during severe […]

Constructed in 1991, the existing Withernsea Sewage Treatment Works (STW) lies 2km south of the East Yorkshire coastal resort town of Withernsea and was built circa 180m from the cliff edge with an expected asset life in excess of 60 years. Since 1998, coastal erosion rates in the area have increased significantly from historic levels, […]

Sludge treatment in the Huddersfield area was previously provided by incineration at Calder Valley Incinerator, located at Yorkshire Water’s Upper Brighouse Site. This incinerator has been inoperable since a weather event in 2015. Following a strategic review, Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) decided to progress with conventional mesophilic anaerobic digestion (MAD) plant supported by lime sanitisation […]

Located in Saltend, Yorkshire Water’s Hull WwTW provides sewage treatment for a population equivalent of over 1 million people, covering an area from the west of Hull to Hedon in the east. This case study follows on from an initial paper in 2020 and details the progress of the new inlet works and the refurbishment […]

A disruptive technology for high-value product generation from wastewater treatment

The Kineton STW required investment in AMP7 due to the introduction of a 0.5mg/l total phosphorus effluent limit, which comes into force by the end of December 2021. The new works is designed to cater for flows from Kineton, Butlers Marston and Radway equating to a combined design horizon population equivalent of 3,946. The existing […]

Both Ledbury and Brockhampton are medium sized works (c15,000 PE) serving the catchments of Ledbury and Cheltenham respectively. Each site was subject to a first-time phosphorus permit with Brockhampton receiving higher flow to full treatment and a tighter BOD permit, and Ledbury having significant growth projected in the catchment. Both sites both required new tertiary […]

Welsh Water raised a programme of quality schemes for completion in AMP6 to address tightening of phosphorus permits set by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) at ten wastewater treatment works. Some of the sites in the programme were subject to a new total phosphorus (TP) permit of 0.5 mg/l T-P and required the installation of a […]

Lowdham is a village in Nottinghamshire that had a history of external and internal sewer flooding to properties, caused by hydraulic incapacity of the combined sewer network. A new 1400m3 offline storage tank was required along with catchment resilience work, which included working in partnership with the local authority to resolve surface water flooding, by […]

Lower Neuadd Reservoir is located in the Brecon Beacons, 5km north of Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. The reservoir, which is an embankment dam, was constructed in 1884. It is the middle of a cascade of three reservoirs, with Upper Neuadd situated 3km upstream of the much larger Pontsticill Reservoir. Lower Neuadd Reservoir had a […]

Ludham WTW supplied 2.1 million litres a day (MLD) of treated water to 2,464 properties in Ludham and Martham whilst originally being fed by Ludham boreholes, with emergency supply coming from East Ruston boreholes. This £7.6m scheme addressed area growth and abstraction licence challenges by combining different schemes to deliver an efficient solution for customers […]

Maerdy Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located 35km north of Cardiff, supplying up to 16Ml/d potable water to customers in Ferndale and the surrounding area. Raw water is gravity fed from Castell Nos and Lluest-Wen Reservoirs and the quality can be highly variable, particularly following heavy rainfall resulting in a challenge to WTW performance. In […]

Customers’ residential properties on Maryville Avenue, South Belfast, had experienced out-of-sewer flooding during periods of heavy rainfall due to the poor condition of the sewerage infrastructure and the partial collapse of a 375mm diameter combined sewer. This sewer is located within 5m of the Belfast to Dublin high-speed rail line and in close proximity to […]

Northumbrian Water (NWL) provides water supply and sewerage services to a population of 2.7 million in the north east and 1.8 million in the south east of England, delivering 1,100 MLD of drinking water. Potable water treatment works vary from small groundwater sources to large surface water treatment facilities such as Mosswood Water Treatment Works […]

The Phosphorus Removal Enhancement Programme (PREP) Batch is a group of projects within United Utilities. These projects provide improvements delivering the Environment Agency (EA) Water Industry National Environmental programme (WINEP) outputs for a future population growth based on a 2035 design horizon. With a focus on ensuring the lowest ‘whole life cost’ solution, the team […]

Severn Trent’s existing Poolend Borehole Pumping Station is located near Leek in Staffordshire and is one of four sources that supply water to Ladderedge DSR. A second borehole source feeds into the Poolend site where both sources undergo water treatment (pH correction, plumbosolvency, marginal chlorination, and ultraviolet (UV)). To ensure continued water security in the […]

Ringsend Main Lift Pumping Station (MLPS) is located at Pigeon House Road, Ringsend, Dublin 4 and forms a critical part of the overall Dublin Drainage Network. It is operated by Dublin City Council and is under the joint control of the Local Authority and Irish Water. The MLPS pumps unscreened, unfiltered wastewater from the city […]

Portsmouth Water’s River Itchen Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located to the east of Southampton Airport near to the picturesque Itchen Valley Country Park and abstracts water directly from the River Itchen for treatment. The River Itchen is 28 miles long and runs from mid-Hampshire near Cheriton through Winchester to Southampton at Mansbridge and is […]

Large diameter rising main deterioration has become a big capital expenditure because of the risk of major infrastructure failure. The costs of repairing these assets in the event of failure are likely to be very high and characterise a large problem for water and sewerage companies in the UK. Wessex Water’s critical crossing review had […]

Located in Temple, near Gorebridge, in Midlothian, Scotland, Rosebery WTW treats raw water sourced from Megget and Gladhouse Reservoirs which is blended at the works inlet. The blended raw water is generally low in turbidity (2.0 NTU 95%ile), moderate colour (63 mg/l Pt/Co 95%ile), with average to high metals concentrations (55 to 300ug/l Mn, Al, […]

In 2016, United Utilities was issued with a Service Reservoir Cleaning notice by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) as part of the Company transformation programme. Inspecting, cleaning and maintaining the reservoirs first required a batch of projects to provide the facility to isolate five existing service reservoirs (SRs) from the water network, whilst maintaining supply […]

The Eels (England and Wales) Regulations 2009 came into force on 15 January 2010 to support the UK in implementing EC Council Regulation (1100/2007). The regulations require all surface water abstractions of more than 20m3/d to be fitted with suitable eel screens by 2021. A batch extension was granted to Severn Trent until end of […]

South Ferriby lies on the south bank of the Humber Estuary, approximately 12 miles from Hull. During a tidal surge in December 2013, the existing flood embankments were inundated causing £50m worth of damage by flooding 129 properties, the CEMEX cement plant, 500 hectares of agricultural land and the A1077. Residents were left fearing for […]

The Sunderland Groundwater Stations (GWS) have historically provided a reliable and cost-effective source of good quality water to the Wearside distribution area. They were mostly built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and consist of one or more shafts, of up to 150m in depth, into the magnesian limestone aquifer. Each station has […]

Donemana Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW), located on the banks of the Burn Dennet River and at the foothills of the Sperrins in Co. Tyrone, serves the Donemana area – the largest of the thirteen villages in the Derry City and Strabane Council area. The existing works had been in service for almost 50 years with […]

Newry is situated some 35 miles south-west of Belfast at the northernmost end of Carlingford Lough, where the Clanrye River/Newry Estuary enters the sea. Newpoint Wastewater Pumping Station (WwPS), situated off the Warrenpoint Road, is the terminal pumping station for the city. The WwPS receives incoming flows from the greater Newry and Carlingford area at […]

The Shared Waters Enhancement & Loughs Legacy (SWELL) project is an extensive programme of work being led by NI Water working in partnership with Irish Water, the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Loughs Agency and East Border Region. Funded under the EU’s INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body, the €35m project […]

The Shared Waters Enhancement & Loughs Legacy (SWELL) project, funded by the EU INTERREG VA Programme, considered wastewater assets with the greatest potential to improve water quality within the Carlingford Lough and Lough Foyle drainage catchments. This included for a major upgrade to the inlet works at Strabane WwTW. In recent times, excessive flows arriving […]

Warrenpoint is a small town in County Down, situated on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough, approximately 7 miles south-east of Newry. The shared water of Carlingford Lough marks the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Due to its scenic beauty and coastal location, Warrenpoint is popular with day trippers and the town can experience […]

Advanced cyclic activated sludge technology with simultaneous nitrification and denitrification and biological phosphorus removal in a single treatment stage

The original treatment works was built in the 1970s in an area carved out of the cliff face. It comprised a screening plant for grit and fat removal, before flows are pumped via a hand-dug long sea outfall 2.5km out to sea. This outfall replaced the original Victorian short sea outfall built in 1874, although […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel project will upgrade London’s Victorian sewer system, which was developed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in the mid-1800s for a population of 4 million people. Now with over 8 million Londoners, the system capacity, around 6mm per hour rainfall in the catchment, has been exceeded and the discharges of mixed water through […]

The Tideway project is a new £3.8 billion, 25km long combined sewage storage and transfer system currently under construction in London. The project is divided into three design and build contracts: West, Central and East. The scope of works of the Central Section, the largest contract, includes 12.7km of 7.2m internal diameter tunnel and eight […]

The Tideway project is a new £3.8 billion, 25km long combined sewage storage and transfer system currently under construction in London. The project is divided into three design and build contracts: West, Central and East. The scope of works of the Central Section, the largest portion of the project at over half its length, includes […]

The Tideway Tunnel is a new 25km long combined sewage storage and transfer system that will help protect the ecology of the River Thames by tackling the problem of overflows from London’s ageing sewers. The Central Section consists of eight work sites each incorporating a drop shaft, as well as two tunnel drives. Of the […]

The Tideway Project is a 25km long combined sewage storage and transfer system along the River Thames in central London, UK. The project is split into three design and build contracts with the limits of each contract determined primarily by geology along the alignment. The contract for the Central Section, the longest and most challenging […]

In the heart of London, the largest project in the UK water industry is underway. Tideway is a new combined storage transfer system, commissioned to provide London’s sewage network with additional capacity and prevent pollution of the River Thames. The colossal scheme consists of a 25km TBM bored tunnel with numerous shafts, associated outfalls and […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a major infrastructure project that will intercept the existing London sewerage system, through a 25km-long tunnel and connection tunnels from Acton in West London to Abbey Mills in East London. The tunnel has a finished internal diameter of 7.3m, starting at a depth of 30m below ground until reaching a […]

The Thames Tideway Project is a major infrastructure project that will intercept the existing London sewerage system through a series of tunnels running 25km from Acton in West London to Abbey Mills in East London. There are 22 vortex drop pipe structures and other near surface structures that will intercept existing spills into the Thames; […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a new storage and conveyance tunnel running through the centre of London, mostly under the River Thames. The main tunnel, which is approximately 25km long with an internal diameter of 7.2m, will run from Acton in the west through to Abbey Mills in the east. The project has been split […]

Over a number of years, properties in the Toome Road area of Ballymena, County Antrim (Northern Ireland), have experienced both external and internal flooding. The residents had been living in fear of further flooding every time there was significant rainfall and the flooding history also meant they had difficulties and extra expense in getting insurance […]

The sea defences along the coast of Lincolnshire mainly comprise of concrete seawalls fronted by sandy beaches providing flood protection to the low-lying coastal flood plain, which extends up to 15km inland and has a recorded history of inland flooding as far back as the 13th century. The Lincolnshire Open Coast Flood Risk Management Scheme […]

The Uckington Borehole Capital Maintenance (BCM) and Restoring Sustainable Abstraction (RSA) Treatment Project set out to achieve the goal of an ecological improvement of the River Worfe while safeguarding the public water supply to the Telford area network. Over-abstraction from the River Worfe was impacting the achievement of Good Ecological Status under the Water Framework […]

The picturesque village of Walton is located within the heart of Warwickshire adjacent to the River Dene. The existing privately owned sewage treatment facility located on the bank of the River Dene was life expired and would often flood, resulting in pollution to the river. An application was made to Severn Trent under Section 101a […]

To accommodate new housing and commercial growth in the Waverley/Catcliffe area of Sheffield, Yorkshire Water required the design and construction of a new pipeline to transfer the flows from a housing development of 4000 homes to the main Blackburn Meadows WwTW. The pipeline route crossed main dual carriageways, other roads, roundabouts, railway lines and passed […]

West Huntspill Water Recycling Centre (WRC) is a Wessex Water facility situated south of Highbridge in West Somerset. This environmentally sensitive site is within a National Nature Reserve and adjacent to a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area (Bridgewater Bay and the Severn Estuary). The facility serves a catchment of 62,000 […]

Westnewton is a small rural village situated in Allerdale, Cumbria, three and a half miles from the Solway coast at Allonby and eight miles west of the market town of Wigton in the North West of England. The wastewater treatment works (WwTWs) serves a population equivalent (PE) of less than 300. The catchment was previously […]

Investment in Whitlingham WRC was identified by Anglian Water to ensure that the site remains resilient for Norwich’s growing population and support the environment of the River Yare; part of the Norfolk Broads. A full review of the existing assets and support to carry out on-site testing to understand the process limitations, identified potential opportunities […]

August 2020 saw the successful completion of a new 3.5km outfall pipeline comprising of onshore (2.5km) and offshore (1km) sections on the Holderness Coast in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire. Due to continued coastal erosion, the purpose of the project was to relocate the existing Withernsea WwTW further inland and replace the exposed existing long […]

Wolsingham Sewage Treatment Works (STW) required upgrading in order to manage increased demand due to population growth in the catchment. The works, adjacent to the River Wear between Crook and Stanhope in northwest Durham, included a combination of new STW components and the upgrade of existing facilities. Northumbrian Water sanctioned the £5.77m project and Tilbury […]

Affinity Water own and operate a crucial and long-standing water treatment works which is situated to support the north London water supply infrastructure. Any shortfall in the production of treated water leads directly to the need for importing water from a neighbouring water company. Four groundwater sources are combined and treated at site, all of […]

Ardsbeg Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located in a remote area in the north of Co. Donegal in Ireland and treats water from a lake source to serve local villages of Gortahork and Falcarragh as well as rural farms and dwellings. The WTW was originally built in the 1960s and was modified in 2003. However, […]

The Thames Water Ring Main (TWRM) in London is an 80km long, 2.5m diameter tunnel built between 1988 and 1994 to take water from five treatment works and transfer flows via pumping stations housed in shafts along the route. It is a major part of London’s water supply infrastructure and carries an average daily flow […]

Sewer rehabilitation projects demonstrate the benefits of basalt

The Thames Water Ring Main (formerly the London Water Ring Main) is a major part of London’s potable water supply infrastructure. Originally constructed between 1988 and 1993, it forms a 50-mile ring of mostly 2.54 m (100”) diameter concrete pipeline to transfer potable water from water treatment works in the River Thames and Lea catchments […]

Wessex Water has in its management a sewer network of 35,000km, of which approximately 10% have a diameter of >900mm. These represent some of the most critical sewers due to their ability to carry larger volumes of wastewater, and therefore must be regularly inspected and maintained. The Bournemouth Coastal Interceptor Sewer (BCIS) is one of […]

Bentley Ings Pumping Station is located within the River Don flood corridor, north-east of Doncaster and protects over 3,000 residential and 172 commercial properties from fluvial risk. The pumping station was constructed in 1942 and failed in 2007 during an extreme River Don flood event, resulting in flooding to over 1,000 properties. The aim of […]

The Hereford Water Network is dependent on a single source of supply from the River Wye and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water identified a need to assess the resilience of the network to maintain customer supply during any future loss of source supply events. The resulting hydraulic assessment identified the requirement to increase the available storage […]

The low-pressure standard (formerly called DG2) is defined by Ofwat as a pressure of less than 10 metres at a flow of 9 litres per minute when measured on the customer side of the water company stop tap. Any properties in breach of this threshold are recorded on the low pressure register and the number […]

Blackburn WwTW, located at Samlesbury near Blackburn, serves a population equivalent (PE) of approximately 400,000 and discharges final and storm effluent to watercourses that are tributaries of the River Darwen, feeding into the River Ribble estuary and ultimately into the bathing waters of the Fylde coast in the Irish Sea. Over the last 12 months, […]

Blackmoorfoot Reservoir, a storage reservoir situated south-west of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, was constructed between 1871 and 1876 at a cost of £260,000. It has a capacity of over 700,000 gallons and covers an area of 102 acres and provides raw water to Blackmoorfoot WTW, which supplies treated water to Huddersfield and surrounding areas. The […]

Bolton-upon-Dearne Wastewater Treatment Works serves approximately 25,000 customers in Rotherham. Faced with an Environment Agency consent to reduce ammonia at the works, Yorkshire Water has undertaken a £12.3m, 14-month project to construct a brand new inlet works and install a new treatment process that will greatly improve the quality of water being released back into […]

Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) have two sludge treatments centres, at Bran Sands STW on Teesside and at Howdon STW on Tyneside, which together process 100% of the sewage sludge arising from within its operating region, using an advanced anaerobic digestion (AAD) process. The resultant renewable biogas is converted into biomethane for export to grid. The […]

Located to the east of Stafford, Severn Trent’s Brancote Sewage Treatment Works (STW) catchment will see an increase in population from 78,075 current population equivalent (PE) to 85,532 by 2028. The site is split into two distinct areas with the STW processing the sewage flows from within its own catchment and the sludge treatment centre […]

The Bray Keleher Water Treatment Works (WTW) abstracts and treats a maximum of 45 Ml/d of river Thames water and is located on Monkey Island Lane, Bray, between Windsor and Maidenhead. The works is of strategic importance in maintaining supplies to the western region of South East Water (SEW). As part of the final determination […]

Brentwood Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is one of Thames Water’s medium sized treatment works. The site is located to the north-east of London between Harold Wood and Brentwood in Essex. The STW treats foul water from the catchment serving West Brentwood, Warley and Pilgrims Hatch. It currently serves a population of 36,500 which will increase […]

Between 1893 and 1904 the Birmingham Corporation dammed the Elan Valley in Wales and constructed an aqueduct to channel water to Birmingham. At the height of the industrial revolution, between 1800 and 1900 Birmingham was booming, and its population rose substantially. Following outbreaks of smallpox and diarrhea, city officials deemed it essential to provide its […]

The Birmingham Resilience Project (BRP) is designed to provide a backup source of raw water from the River Severn to the water treatment works that serves Birmingham. During planned or unplanned outages of the primary water source, the raw water system will abstract water from the River Severn between October and March and supply 117 […]

Raw water has been collected in reservoirs in the Elan Valley in Wales and transferred 118km under gravity through an aqueduct to the water treatment works (WTW) in Birmingham for treatment and distribution to the city’s residents and industries since the beginning of the 20th century. The original infrastructure was constructed over 100 years ago, […]

During AMP4, Thames Water Utilities Ltd (TWUL) undertook low flow investigations for the Letcombe Brook, in the Wantage area of Oxfordshire. It was determined that the abstraction at Childrey Warren Water Treatment Works (WTW) was having an adverse impact on the river flows and the local environment. A subsequent review of options which included augmentation, […]

Situated on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, Church Wilne WTW serves 600,000 Severn Trent (ST) customers in the East Midlands. Built in 1967 to extract and treat 27 ML/day from the River Derwent, the works has been extended twice to 135 ML/day meeting the needs of both a growing population and increased water quality standards. However, the […]

South East Water’s College Avenue Water Treatment Works in Berkshire supports the Maidenhead water supply infrastructure. It extracts raw water from three boreholes and three chalk wells, which is then dosed with sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), aerated, passed through granular activated carbon (GAC) absorbers, and finally injected with sodium hypochlorite to super-chlorinate it before entering the […]

The Counters Creek Flood Alleviation Scheme was developed by Thames Water in response to the widespread basement flooding caused by intense rainfall in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The scheme aims to reduce flood risk for relevant basement properties through a series of interventions that […]

Low-temperature sewage sludge drying with carbonisation and phosphorus recovery: experience and lessons learned from municipal wastewater treatment plants in Germany

Durleigh Water Treatment Centre is located approximately 2km west of Bridgwater, Somerset and is Wessex Water’s second largest surface water treatment works serving a population of 44,500. The site was originally designed to treat up to 28.5 Ml/d, with water drawn down from the 959,000m3 Durleigh Impounding Reservoir. Raw water quality has deteriorated in recent […]

Located close to the English Channel, East Worthing WwTW serves a population of 140,000 in a largely urbanised area in West Sussex. In peak wet weather conditions, up to 71 million litres can flow through the site in a day. Due to the urban nature of the catchment, and some large and relatively shallow gradient […]

The large, industrial town of Ellesmere Port in Cheshire is experiencing population growth, thanks to excellent transport links and an array of employment opportunities. The local population is set to rise by a further 10% by 2036, to over 76,000, so upgrades to the Ellesmere Port WwTW are necessary to cope with increased throughput. The […]

The Foss Barrier and associated pumping station is a vital asset in the City of York’s flood defences and was constructed in the 1980s in response to severe flooding five years earlier. In flood conditions, a mechanical gate can be lowered to stop rising waters in the River Ouse from flowing back up into the […]

The River Ver is a chalk river tributary of the River Colne in Hertfordshire. Chalk rivers are a globally rare habitat, with around 240 existing worldwide. There are approximately 160 chalk streams in England with 10% located within the supply area of Affinity Water. The Environment Agency placed targets (through the Water Industry National Environment Programme) […]

Helston is located at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall and the lower town has suffered from a long history of flooding from the River Cober. This ultimately prompted the development of a flood alleviation scheme (FAS) in 1989. However, following these works, there were further flood events in 1993, 1999, 2003 […]

Hookstone Road CSO in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, is a CSO chamber with upstream and downstream online storage provided by large diameter pipes. During storm events, pass forward flow is restricted by the 200mm outlet pipe and 90 degree bend downstream and partially fills the storage pipes before excess flows pass through a screen at the […]

The advanced anaerobic digestion (AAD) plant at Howdon STW includes 3 (No.) MWM gas engines that were commissioned in September 2013. The engines originally used biogas from the digestion process as fuel to produce steam for the thermal hydrolysis plant and generate electricity. The electricity generated by the engines when running on renewable biogas is […]

High Speed 2 (HS2) will be the UK’s new £56 billion high speed railway linking London to the Midlands and north of England with some sections of the route already under construction. The new high-speed railway line in Yorkshire will run from Chesterfield to Leeds. Yorkshire Water are the water and wastewater authority in this […]

Huddersfield Energy and Recycling Facility (Huddersfield E&RF) is in Mirfield on Yorkshire Water’s Upper Brighouse site. The project involved the demolition of the existing incinerator and construction of a new mesophilic anaerobic digestion facility that will produce electricity; equivalent to powering 5280 homes once it is fully operational. The primary drivers for the scheme were: […]

Hull WwTW located at Saltend, east of Hull, provides sewage treatment for a population equivalent of over 1 million people, covering an area from the west of Hull to Hedon in the east. The existing treatment works was built over 20 years ago and required some specific upgrading and refurbishment. The primary drivers for the […]

Located to the West of the town of Banchory, Aberdeenshire, Scottish Water’s Invercannie WTW is currently a 49 Ml/d water treatment works which serves the local population as well as providing raw and treated water to Mannofield WTW in Aberdeen via two 28km aqueducts (one laid in 1866 and the other in 1924). The treatment […]

Keele University is situated in the village of Keele, Staffordshire, on the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It was established in the 1940s and has grown considerably to educate approximately 10,000 students on a 625-acre (253ha) campus. The University owns and operates its own water supply infrastructure; this includes approximately 16km of pipework and a service reservoir. […]

Severn Trent’s Ketford Borehole Pumping Station (BPS) is a critical source which feeds into the Bromsberrow BPS, where the water is blended before being pumped into supply. The pumping station was vulnerable to outage largely due to having a single operational borehole. There were three boreholes at the site (BH1, BH2 and BH3), which historically […]

Kirk Hallam is a village on the outskirts of Ilkeston, Derbyshire in the East Midlands. It had a history of internal and external property flooding from the sewerage network in three separate locations within the catchment. Severn Trent (ST) appointed nmcn PLC (now Galliford Try) as the design and build contractor under the AMP6 framework […]

Langford Water Treatment Works (WTW) is owned and operated by Essex and Suffolk Water (ESW), part of the Northumbrian Water Group (NWG). The treatment works, located near the town of Maldon, treats water abstracted from the nearby River Chelmer and River Blackwater. The river water quality changes greatly with rainfall, at times of excessive turbidity […]

Yorkshire Water’s Langsett Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located 17km north-west of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, on the edge of the Peak District National Park. The WTW treats raw water which is extracted by gravity from two upland impounding reservoirs at Langsett (adjacent to the WTW) and nearby Midhope (approximately 1km south-east of the site). […]

In April 2015, BT announced they would be withdrawing support of all their very low bandwidth (VLB) leased lines from a fixed deadline of the 31 March 2020. Leased lines are dedicated lines, used as connections to carry communications or electrical signals between two locations. They are often used in conjunction with telemetry outstations, with […]

United Utilities’ (UU) vision is to be a leading north west service provider, and one of the best UK water and wastewater companies. It is a challenging vision, but one United Utilities are capable of achieving by focusing on three objectives to deliver the best service to customers, at the lowest sustainable cost and in […]

Llyn Brenig impounding reservoir is located in the Denbigh Moors in North Wales. It was constructed in 1975 and was officially opened by the Prince of Wales. It forms part of the River Dee regulation to manage flow into the Dee via the Afon Alwen. The reservoir has a capacity of around 60 million cubic […]

All freshwater fish species in England undergo migration in one form or another, ranging from movements pertaining to feeding and refuge habitats over the course of a day, to longer journeys (for example, between freshwater and marine habitats) on a less frequent basis. Between 2015-2020, Yorkshire Water, in partnership with the Environmental Agency as part […]

Loch Venachar Reservoir is located near Callander in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. The reservoir was formed in 1859 under the direction of civil engineer John Frederick Bateman (1810-1889), when the existing loch level was raised by the construction of a masonry dam across the outlet from the loch known as the Eas […]

Lough Fea Water Treatment Works supplies water to approximately 24,000 Northern Ireland Water customers, with the Lough Fea Clear Water Basin South supplying over 10,000 people in Cookstown and surrounding rural areas. A 2013 report commissioned by NI Water identified the need for increased potable water storage facilities within the Lough Fea Supply Zone to […]

The Lynemouth Colliery was part of a larger mining block linked to Ellington Colliery (Ellington Combine) that worked reserves under the North Sea; the mining block extended inland close to Morpeth. Groundwater lies above the rocks forming the coal measures. If mine water was to rise unchecked, it could pollute a source of water for […]

Maghaberry Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) serves the Maghaberry area and the local prison in the Lisburn and Castlereagh District Council area, in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. The Works is under the control of NI Water and provides primary and secondary treatment. The Works was insufficiently sized to suit the growing local population and the expansion […]

Marston Water Recycling Centre (WRC), near Grantham, serves a population of approximately 63,500 from Marston and the surrounding areas, with a capacity to treat up to 392 l/s of wastewater. The projected population growth in the area is approximately 76,000 until 2031, with the significant proportion of this growth estimated to occur by 2022. Following […]

Operated by United Utilities, the Morecambe sewerage system collects at Schola Green Wastewater Pumping Station (WwPS) located in the west end of the town. From there, flows for treatment are pumped via a 6km long pipeline to Morecambe Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW), which is situated to the south, near to the village of Middleton. Both […]

Murton WTW is fed by six boreholes and supplies up to 350m3/hour of potable water to Berwick-upon-Tweed and surrounding areas, serving over 7,500 properties. The boreholes which feed the Berwick Water Supply Zone can contain turbidity, particularly when flows are high, interrupted or varied. The existing treatment process was unable to remove the turbidity, causing […]

Sustainable bio-P removal at small works

Severn Trent have made a £60m investment in Newark-on-Trent upgrading the sewers and water supply network throughout the town. The project provided relief to some 400 homes and businesses from sewer flooding, and provided a robust water supply system which will serve the town for many years to come. The project included a 2.8km segmental […]

Newham Sewage Treatment Works is located on the outskirts of Truro, Cornwall. The site treats wastewater from the city and the surrounding areas which are experiencing a rapid population growth. A £6.8m project was sanctioned by South West Water in May 2018 to provide a new secondary process stream, utilising the novel Nereda granular activated […]

Llanelli Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) in Llanelli, South Wales, serves the catchment’s 60,000 inhabitants and discharges treated effluent into the Loughor Estuary. The estuary is not only ecologically sensitive, but also a critical natural asset to the local community and to the wider South Wales region. It is a natural capital asset, home to commercial […]

Shakespeare Street in Nottingham is situated at the heart of Nottingham Trent University campus, a short walk from the main square in the city centre. The basements of a number of buildings in the area suffered repeat sewer flooding, ranking inside the top 1% of all flood risks across the Severn Trent (ST) region. In […]

United Utilities is the regional water company for the North West of England, delivering water and wastewater services to 7m people from Cheshire to the Scottish border. Oldham WwTW and Royton WwTW are two major wastewater treatment works located in Oldham, to the north east of Manchester. The Oldham and Royton Integrated Strategy (ORIS) project […]

The Phillipson Street CSO Scheme is located in Wallsend, a suburban area to the east of Newcastle city centre with an industrial past. In the catchment upstream of the existing CSO, a total of 3,869 people are served by a fully combined sewer network. The existing CSO has undergone several upgrades over at least the […]

Located on the edge of Strangford Lough, on the Ards Peninsula, Portaferry Road WwPS serves the eastern catchment of Newtownards, forwarding approximately 25-35% of the wastewater from Newtownards town to Ballyrickard WwTW, located approximately 3km away. Altogether Ballyrickard WwTW receives untreated foul effluent from six major pumping stations located within the Comber and Newtownards catchments: […]

In summer 2019, Northern Ireland Water commenced upgrade works to the water supply on Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland’s only inhabited offshore island. The current public water supply on Rathlin Island is supplied from groundwater. It consists of a pair of closely located boreholes feeding a simple double cartridge type filtration system with sodium hypochlorite dosing […]

After the implementation of the transfer of private drainage to Wessex Water in 2011, it became imperative that it was necessary to focus more attention on trenchless alternatives for repair of small diameter sewers. Wessex Water’s overall cumulative volume of public sewers doubled overnight from 17,000km to 34,000km, and the majority of that transferred stock […]

In 2017, aBV – a joint venture between Amey and Black and Veatch (now Binnies), and Environmental Techniques approached client Scottish Water about utilising carbon fibre (CFRP) and glass fibre (GFRP) to provide a 60-year rehabilitation technique to an existing pipe bridge; an approach that has never been used before in the UK Water Industry. […]

Rugby STW is situated on the south bank of the River Avon, approximately 1km north of the town of Rugby in Warwickshire. Final effluent from Rugby STW is discharged into the River Avon and needs to meet permits set by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). It provides sewage treatment to a population of circa 107,975. […]

As with all water companies, Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) work within the targets and guidelines set by their industry regulator, the Northern Ireland Utility Regulator and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI). At present Northern Ireland’s existing potable water main infrastructure comprises approximately 26,700 km of water mains, delivering approximately 560 million litres of clean, […]

The Eels Regulations 2009 require an eel screen to be installed within a diversion structure capable of allowing at least 20m3 of abstraction in a 24-hour period. The focus of this programme is to protect a threatened species of fish, brook lamprey (Lampetra planeri). This eel-like ancient fish is rare in the UK and ranges […]

Refurbishment project to strengthen resilience of raw water supply to Essex strategic reservoirs

Essex and Suffolk Water’s Syleham Water Treatment Works is located in the north-east part of Hartismere in Suffolk. The works supplies water to the north side of Eye and to Fressingfield Water Tower, which in turn supplies approximately 4,000 properties (10,000 customers) throughout a number of villages. It was originally constructed in 1940 and raw […]

Tarbert WTW is located on the edge of Loch Fyne, an inland sea loch, west of the small village of Tarbert in Argyll & Bute. The water treatment works is supplied from the Loch a’ Chaorainn located 5 miles north-west of the treatment works, serving a population of approximately 3,000. To remove the risk of […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a major tunnelling project designed to mitigate the large-scale pollution problem involving the discharge of sewage into the River Thames. The project consists of a 25km long TBM tunnel under the river along with numerous shafts, culverts and connections tunnels constructed using sprayed concrete lined techniques. These will be used […]

The Chelsea Embankment Foreshore (CHEEF) site is one of the eight main sites in the Central Section of the Thames Tideway Tunnel. The site is located within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and will allow for the diversion to the main tunnel of approximately 280,000m3 of sewage that currently discharges into the river. […]

Falconbrook Pumping station (FALPS), located in the London Borough of Wandsworth, is the most westerly site on the Thames Tideway Central Section. FALPS is an active pumping station, discharging approximately 700,000m3 of untreated sewage directly into the River Thames each year via six storm pumps. The current station has a combined discharge volume rate of […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a new super sewer that will intercept, store and convey the CSO discharges to Beckton STW for treatment. The project is divided into three main work contracts: West, Central and East. The Ferrovial Construction and Laing O’Rourke joint venture (FLO JV) has been appointed as principal contractor for the Central […]

Tophill Low Water Treatment Works supplies Hull and surrounding areas with clean water abstracted from the River Hull at Hempholme. The lock, which is managed by the Driffield Navigation Trust, is a very busy passage for narrow boats during the spring and summer months. The raw water intake capacity is managed by Yorkshire Water in […]

Uig WTW is located on the west coast of Lewis and provides potable water to the community of around 500 residents, with a significant tourist increase in the summer months. The works are gravity-fed by a high-level loch around 2km from the site. Treated water is then pumped from the water treatment works to a […]

As part of Severn Trent’s ongoing duty to provide public sewers under section 101A of the Water Industry Act 1991 (S101a), nine properties in the hamlet of Upperwood, Matlock Bath, required connection to such a system. These properties were served by private septic tanks, discharged into the limestone aquifer below. Severn Trent appointed Galliford Try […]

Westnewton is a small village about three and a half miles from the Solway coast at Allonby and eight miles west of the market town of Wigton. The wastewater treatment works is situated on a hillside above the village and treats wastewater for 275 population equivalent (PE) from the village and the local area. The […]

Withernsea is located in Yorkshire, approximately 18 miles east of Hull on the Holderness Coast. The area is vulnerable to coastal erosion due to the geology being mainly soft boulder clay. Groynes and sea walls being installed in Bridlington and Hornsea have affected the longshore drift, which has caused Withernsea area beaches to narrow, providing […]

The River Beane is a chalk stream that flows through the county of Hertfordshire and is 30.3km in length from its source at Roe Green. As a tributary of the River Lea, it rises to the south-west of Sandon, in the hills northeast of Stevenage, and joins the Lea at Hartham Common in Hertford. Chalk […]

In October 2020, the finishing touches were undertaken at Woolston Wastewater Treatment Works, completing Southern Water’s £100m scheme to transform its works in Southampton, Hampshire. From the waterside, the new age space-like silver cladding that dominates the site is a much different picture from how the site has looked over the last few years when […]

Wrington village, near the Mendip Hills in north Somerset, lies in the valley of the Congresbury Yeo River, about 20km south-west of the Bristol. Rye Brook flows through Wrington and regularly floods. The floodplain intersects a central corridor through the village, with at least 11 residential properties currently at very significant risk and 42 properties […]

Zouch is a small hamlet situated along the A6006 on the border of Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire and consists of 43 properties that had no access to public sewerage. Due to the canalisation of the River Soar, the hamlet is entirely surrounded by water with the main River Soar to the South and the navigable Zouch […]

As part of the AMP6 Capital Programme, Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) are investing over £1bn in water and wastewater services to provide unrivalled customer service. As part of this programme. Esh-Stantec, a joint venture between Esh Construction and Stantec UK, was commissioned by NWG to investigate the sewer network and to develop a notional solution […]

Anchorsholme Park is located on the coast 4 miles north of Blackpool Tower. The long sea outfall (LSO) project is the third of three phases contributing to improving bathing waters on the Fylde Coast. The objective of the overall scheme is to complete the AMP6 obligations on the Fylde Coast of the ‘moving towards three […]

Anchorsholme Park is located on the coast 4 miles north of Blackpool Tower. The outfall pumping station project is the second of three phases contributing to improving bathing waters on the Fylde coast. The objective of the overall scheme is to complete the AMP5 obligations on the Fylde Coast of the ‘moving towards three spills […]

The next Asset Management Period (AMP7) will introduce a new focus on lowering expenditure, reducing costs to the customer, developing long term solutions and meeting more stringent quality standards. A significant part of meeting these objectives will be ensuring facilities are operating in the most efficient way. Continual advances in technology, including the ongoing growth […]

Ardersier is located on the Moray Firth some 11 miles east of Inverness. The wastewater treatment works serves the town of Ardersier and the surrounding area including Inverness Airport and Fort George Barracks. It currently serves a population of less than 2,000 but there are significant developments planned in the area with a long-term future […]

United Utilities has completed the refurbishment of Aubrey Street Reservoir, a 40Ml underground service reservoir located just outside Everton and serving Liverpool district. Treated water for the 41-year-old reservoir is pumped in from Huntington Water Treatment Works in Chester. The main driver for the project was water quality, which risked being compromised by heavy ingress […]

The North Norfolk coastline has undergone progressive coastal erosion at around the present rate for the last 5,000 years. The cliffs are made of soft deposits, mainly sand and soft clays, which are very vulnerable to erosion. This long-term coastal change puts pressure on communities, infrastructure and business in the coastal zone. The Bacton Gas […]

The North Norfolk coastline has undergone progressive coastal erosion at around the present rate for the last 5,000 years. This long-term coastal change puts pressure on communities, infrastructure and business in the coastal zone. This includes the Bacton Gas Terminal (a piece of nationally critical infrastructure that supplies up to one third of the UK’s […]

Barston Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is one of Severn Trent’s medium sized treatment works. The site is located to the east of Birmingham in the West Midlands. The STW treats foul water for the catchment serving Solihull, Shirley, Knowle and other outlying conurbations. It currently serves a population of 39,741 which will increase to 76,036. […]

Battlefield Brook catchment encompasses farmland, Catshill Marsh (which used to be a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation; SINC), urbanised reaches adjacent to the M5 and Sanders Park; a public amenity facility owned by Bromsgrove District Council. The section of the brook through Sanders Park was lined with concrete in the 1960s. Despite its urbanised […]

Both Blackburn WwTW and Darwen WwTW discharge final and storm effluent to watercourses that are tributaries of the River Darwen, feeding into the River Ribble and ultimately impacting on the bathing waters of the Fylde coast. Following on from the Blackburn and Darwen WwTWs (2017) article and Blackburn and Darwen WwTWs (2018) article, both published […]

The River Blythe is a tributary of the River Tame east of Birmingham – neither of the rivers are at good ecological status. Although reasons for failure under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) are complex, the Environment Agency (EA) identifies barriers to fish and eel passage as part of the problem. Severn Trent has gravity […]

Boston Barrier Tidal Flood Defence Scheme is a £100m project for the Environment Agency, delivered by BMMJV (a joint venture between BAM Nuttall and Mott MacDonald), to reduce the risk of tidal flooding to 14,300 properties and businesses in Boston, Lincolnshire. Boston is located on the east coast of the United Kingdom off The Wash […]

Boughton STW is a medium sized sewage treatment works serving a population equivalent of approximately 13,000 located about 8 miles south-east of Worksop in Nottinghamshire. As part of Severn Trent’s commitment to the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to improve the quality of waterbodies in the region within AMP6, Boughton STW was highlighted to accept a […]

Located in South Ayrshire, Scotland, Bradan Water Treatment Works (WTW) has a capacity of 120 Ml/day, with an output of approximately 70 Ml/day. The existing treatment processes comprise aluminium sulphate coagulation, dissolved air flotation, primary filtration, manganese contactors, orthophosphate dosing, lime and disinfection. The works supplies a large area along the west coast of Scotland, […]

Brantham Raw Water Intake is owned and operated by Essex and Suffolk Water (ESW), part of the Northumbrian Water Group (NWG). The raw water intake, located on the banks of the River Stour north of Colchester, abstracts water from the River Stour where it is transferred under gravity to Brantham Pumping Station. The raw water […]

The Bray Keleher Water Treatment Works (WTW) abstracts and treats a maximum of 45 Ml/d of water from the River Thames and is located on Monkey Island Lane, Bray which is part way between Windsor and Maidenhead. The works is of strategic importance in maintaining supplies to the western region of South East Water (SEW). […]

Since the beginning of the 20th century, raw water has been conveyed 118km from the Elan Valley in Wales, under gravity by aqueduct, to the water treatment works (WTW) in Birmingham for treatment and supply to the population of the city. The aqueduct has been in continuous service for over 100 years and requires some […]

Bryn Cowlyd Water Treatment Works is located south of the village of Dolgarrog in county of Conwy. The works is gravity fed with raw water from Llyn Cowlyd, 350m above and approximately three miles south west of the works, in the Carneddau mountain range in Snowdonia National Park. The old treatment works was commissioned in […]

Completed in 1999, the Cardiff Bay Barrage was designed to regenerate the city waterfront as a vibrant and attractive destination while creating an efficient, two-way control interface between the tidal waters of Cardiff basin and the river estuaries beyond. The challenge of achieving this balance of functionality both sides of the barrage is reflected to […]

During AMP4, Thames Water Utilities Ltd (TWUL) undertook low flow investigations for the Letcombe Brook, in the Wantage area (Oxfordshire). It was determined that the abstraction at Childrey Warren Water Treatment Works (WTW) was having an adverse impact on the river flows and the local environment. A subsequent review of options which included augmentation, works […]

In 2016 Yorkshire Water made the strategic decision to remove all chlorine and sulphur dioxide gas from its Water Treatment Works. This formed part of the Yorkshire Water Safety Improvement Plan as the existing toxic gas disinfection systems were becoming non-compliant with Health and Safety regulations and posed a potential significant risk to employees and […]

Severn Trent (ST) and Hafren Dyfrdwy (HD) have been challenged to meet a large number of new, tight phosphorus permits as a result of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Historically, only Total-P levels down to 1 mg/l have been enforced by the Environment Agency, but in AMP6 and AMP7 a big step change in expectations […]

The Coleshill Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion Plant processes 48,500 tonnes per annum of food waste collected generally within 30 miles of the site. The site has been in continuous operation since January 2015 when it first received commercial customers. It is currently estimated that this project can deliver 5.5GWh per annum (electrical equivalence) of new […]

Balder Pipe Bridge spans the River Balder in Cotherstone Village near Barnard Castle, County Durham. The bridge abutments occupy private land on either side of the bridge with a public footpath running past the south abutment. The bridge was original designed to carry a single 24” cast iron raw water main which supplies Lartington Water […]

Crankley Point Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is a Severn Trent asset serving Newark-on-Trent, a town in Nottinghamshire with a population of just under 30,000. As part of the £60 million Newark Waste and Water Improvement Project, a new terminal pumping station (TPS) and screening chamber (SC) with outfall to the River Trent was required to […]

Located to the south-east of Nottingham, Severn Trent Water’s Cropwell Bishop Sewage Treatment Works (STW) serves 700 residential premises in the village and a number of local businesses, including the Cropwell Bishop creamery, which contributes a significant phosphorous loading to the catchment. It also receives pumped sewage flows from the adjacent village of Cropwell Butler. […]

Davyhulme Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is United Utilities (UU) largest, serving over 1.3 million customers across Greater Manchester. Built in 1894, it has seen continuous development in wastewater treatment including the invention of the activated sludge process (ASP) by Ardern & Lockett in 1914. Incoming flows from the combined sewer network can reach 30m3/s, the […]

Earl Shilton Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is situated in south west Leicestershire and serves a population equivalent of 11,833 comprised mainly from domestic sources from Earl Shilton and Barwell. There has been a STW in this location since the 1960s and the current process workstream includes preliminary treatment, primary settlement, secondary filtration, secondary settlement and […]

Efficient phosphorus removal for tertiary phases of wastewater treatment works to achieve <0.5mg/l of Total Phosphorus

Finham Sewage Treatment Works (STW) serves a population equivalent of 430,470 for Coventry and its environs. The existing processes include preliminary treatment, primary settlement, a plug flow activated sludge plant (ASP) and final settlement tanks. The site is also a sludge reception centre and has the capability to treat indigenous and imported sludges. The sludge […]

Flass Vale is an area of woodland to the northwest of Durham City Centre that extends north-west to Durham Johnston School and the A167. Flass Burn flows generally north-west to south-east through the Vale. The Burn is an open ditch in the northwest and is culverted in the southeast including through a former bus depot […]

In December 2015, the most severe floods in a generation hit the City of York. As water levels rose to the highest recorded on the River Foss, they entered the main control building at the Foss Barrier, which forms an important part of the city’s flood defences, rendering the facility inoperable. The Foss Barrier and […]

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has an extensive network of rural water supply assets in North Wales, with numerous service reservoirs and many kilometers of pipeline. Emergency repairs or mitigation measures have arisen from both freeze-thaw conditions and dry weather over the past few years. During 2018 there were both extremes of cold weather and one […]

Located south of the town of Elgin in the north east of Scotland, Scottish Water’s Glenlatterach WTW is situated in the heart of Speyside, home to some of Scotland’s most beautiful scenery as well as roughly half of all of the whisky distilleries operating in Scotland. Raw water is abstracted from the Glenlatterach Reservoir and […]

Goscote STW is an activated sludge process (ASP) works located near Walsall in the West Midlands which serves a population equivalent (PE) of 120,806 (including trade). The site discharges into the River Tame catchment. Its upgrade was key to meet a tighter environmental permit in AMP6, being 10 mg/l BOD, 1.3 mg/l ammonia and 0.2 […]

The Island of Jersey is situated in the English Channel, 161km south of the English coast. Jersey Water produces the Island’s potable drinking water, supplying over 90% of the Island’s population of 100,000. Jersey Water operates six major reservoirs, one of which is Grands Vaux Reservoir. Originally built in 1951, it is situated in St […]

As part of the ongoing growth of Coventry University, an existing builder’s merchant yard situated off Gulson Road provided a developer with the ideal city centre plot to construct an extensive eight-storey student accommodation building. The brownfield site redevelopment required an existing Severn Trent owned trunk sewer to be diverted prior to the construction work […]

Hazards Green WTW is a South East Water treatment works situated near Ninfield in East Sussex. The works abstracts river water directly from the Wallers Haven and following treatment, supplies a large volume of commercial and domestic customers in the surrounding areas. Prior to this scheme the existing abstraction point had ageing static, coarse trash […]

Keswick and the surrounding area within the Lake District National Park has suffered severely from recent flood events. Most recently, Storm Desmond (2015) resulted in approximately 500 flooded properties and disruption to the A66 trunk road, a key national and strategic link for east/west journeys in the North of England. The A66 is situated close […]

Ingoldisthorpe WRC was identified by the EA under ‘no deterioration’ as requiring additional measures in order to address the tightening of ammonia and phosphorus levels (1mg/l NH3-N and 4.5mg/l P) in order to sufficiently treat all required flow, meet discharge consents and maintain the quality of the receiving water bodies. The existing works serves a […]

Inverurie Wastewater Treatment Works lies on the banks of the River Don in Aberdeenshire, at the confluence with the River Urie, and serves a current population of approximately 28,000 people with substantial future growth within the catchment forecasted. This project has been initiated by Scottish Water to provide compliance with new nutrient discharge consents under […]

Yorkshire Water, in partnership with the Environment Agency as part of a much wider programme of work to comply with the National Environment Programme, will see a total of £10m invested between 2015-2020. Such investment will see the creation of 14 new fish passes across the Yorkshire region. The primary driver is compliance with the […]

Guernsey is an island with a population of around 65,000. It has been served by three water treatment works; two (at Longue Hougue and St Saviour) utilising a membrane technology, and the third based on a more traditional rapid gravity filtration (RGF) process. The operation, control and reliability of the Longue Hougue plant had for […]

Kendal WwTW is the main treatment facility for the area servicing a large residential and tourist catchment, with a population equivalent of 82,384. The works has an existing consent of 25 mg/l biological oxygen demand (BOD) 45mg/l suspended solids, 5 mg/l ammonia, and an annual average phosphorus permit of 1 mg/l, with a flow to […]

Since 2010 the Risk Management Authorities (RMAs) for the Tyneside Drainage Catchment have developed and implemented an area-based prioritisation process to identify and investigate those drainage areas at greatest risk of performance failure. The Killingworth, Longbenton and Forest Hall area was one of those areas identified, something supported by the published 2010 Strategic Flood Risk […]

The 2010 Shellfish Waters Directive placed a new obligation on South West Water (SWW) to ‘endeavour to meet’ the Shellfish Waters Regulations ‘Guideline’ Standard (Class B). The Shellfish Waters (SFW) programme of work was to meet legislative requirements to protect or improve designated shellfish waters to support shellfish life and growth, contributing to the quality […]

Over the last two decades the concept of municipal sewage being an expensive to treat waste stream has slowly become surpassed by renewable and sustainable opportunities that re-label wastewater treatment works as water resource recovery facilities (WRRF), sludge recycling centres (SRC) or sludge treatment facilities (STF) to name but a few. Incentivised by UK Government, […]

Loch Ness Regional is a new multi-site £22m water treatment works and infrastructure project for Scottish Water improving the water supply to their customers from the villages of Fort Augustus and Invermoriston, both to the south of Inverness. Located on the banks of Loch Ness, the project’s objective is to improve the treatment of water […]

Lochmaddy is the main town located on North Uist, which is one of the islands forming part of the Western Isles. This project involved the design, installation, construction and commissioning of a new water treatment works (WTW) on a greenfield site beside the existing site. Additionally, some of the works were within South Lewis, Harris […]

Yorkshire Water’s Loftsome Bridge Water Treatment Works (WTW) is sited off the A63 between Selby and Howden in East Yorkshire. This WTW is a key part of the Yorkshire Water Services’ network, serving the Hull distribution network and contributing significantly to the Yorkshire Water Grid System. The WTW abstracts water from the River Derwent which […]

Affinity Water (AW) is the largest water-only supply company in the UK, providing on average 900 million litres of water each day to a population of more than 3.6 million people in parts of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, the London Boroughs of Harrow and Hillingdon and parts of the London Boroughs of Barnet, […]

A £940k flood alleviation scheme has been successfully completed in Nottinghamshire. Mansfield, Gunthorpe Court, was a scheme designed to tackle insufficient stormwater capacity which was causing internal and external flooding to numerous properties in the area. Part of the solution was to provide 480m3 of storage by converting an existing pedestrian subway into an attenuation […]

Medlock Quality Programme is part of United Utilities AMP6 investment programme across the North West and is the third Nereda® Reactor Plant to be operated by United Utilities. The scheme can be split into two distinct areas: (i) the upgrade of Failsworth WwTW to meet the new discharge consent and reduce the volumes of spills […]

The Curdworth Sludge Lagoon is located within Severn Trent’s Minworth STW site, alongside the Minworth Final Effluent Channel situated to the north and the River Tame to the south. It was constructed during the early 1900s. Filling operations ceased during the late 1940s and it has remained in its current state since that time. The […]

United Utilities’ Morecambe sewerage system collects at Schola Green Wastewater Pumping Station (WwPS) located in the west end of the town. From there, flows for treatment are pumped via a 6km long pipeline to Morecambe Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW), which is situated to the south, near to the village of Middleton. Both sites have sea […]

The Mythe Water Treatment Works is situated on the east bank of the River Severn, approximately half a mile north of the town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and provides drinking water to population of circa 400,000. Mythe WTW came to national attention in July 2007 when the site was partially inundated with flood water from […]

An article published in the 22 April 1881 edition of the ‘News Letter’, one of Belfast’s leading newspapers, still in circulation today, remarked: “Time was when the Blackstaff [River] ran through the suburbs little more polluted than a mountain burn. Now it has become the greatest eyesore in the town.” This self-same article also published […]

Otterbourne WSW is a critical site, located between Southampton and Winchester, supplying water to the surrounding area to a total of around 250,000 homes. Otterbourne was originally constructed in 1939, with extensions to the works being constructed in 1949 and 1958. The works treats borehole and river water which supply two independent treatment streams. The […]

Scottish Water’s £17m Paisley Environmental Project, which started in October 2016, is the largest of its kind that Scottish Water has ever made in Renfrewshire. The project is part of the company’s £250m, six-year programme of work, launched in 2013, to improve river water quality and the natural environment and tackle flooding across the Greater […]

Pegswood Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is a Northumbrian Water (NW) site located 16 miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 2 miles north-east of Morpeth, Northumberland. The treatment process comprised inlet screens, flow control and storm separation to storm tanks, two Dortmund pyramidal settlement tanks, four biological percolating filters, with a circular humus tank discharging final effluent […]

Situated on the outskirts of St Austell on the south coast of Cornwall, Charlestown Harbour is an unspoilt, original Grade II Listed Harbour. Used recently as a key location for the filming of the BBC’s remake of the 1970s hit series Poldark, it has also been used for Dr Who, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, […]

During 2018, NI Water commenced refurbishment work to one of its critical assets, twin sewerage siphons, known as the Queens Bridge Siphons, in Belfast. The siphons transfer wastewater from a substantial proportion (circa 40,000 population) of the east of the City under the River Lagan to the Oxford Street Trunk Sewer for onward transfer to […]

Renny’s Lane Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) is located in arable farmland to the south of the Belmont and Carville residential estate, north east of the City of Durham. The pumping station has two parallel rising mains which transfer combined flows into the gravity sewerage network which ultimately drains to Belmont Sewage Treatment Works (STW). The […]

As part of a continued effort to improve service to customers and ensure resilience and security of supply, the team at Northumbrian Water Limited together with Stantec UK carried out an investigative study of the issues related to the River Yare Strategic Crossing and identified a cost effective solution that achieved these objectives. The Great […]

Rothera Research Station is a remote facility in Antarctica which is operated by the British Antarctic Survey. Incremental growth in the staffing levels at the station had led to the overloading of the existing wastewater treatment plant and, with the commencement of construction work on site, additional treatment capacity was required. By selecting the most […]

Scaynes Hill Wastewater Treatment Works serves a population of approximately 38,000 from Haywards Heath and surrounding areas in West Sussex, with capacity to treat up to 337 l/s of incoming wastewater flow. The treatment works also receives imported cess via tanker from customers not connected to the mains drainage system, plus liquid sludge via tanker […]

Seaham Sewage Treatment Works (STW) receives and treats raw sewage from Seaham and the surrounding area. Constructed in phases between 1996 and 2001, the works serve a population of over 23,000 people. The works were originally built to ensure compliance with the Bathing Water Directive, as the site discharges directly into the North Sea via […]

In 2013, two villages in Gloucestershire; Slimbridge and Cambridge, were identified by Severn Trent to be suffering from significant infiltration of groundwater. The Slimbridge and Cambridge catchment is home to approximately 1,136 people (2011 census) and contains an ecologically important wetland. Both villages have historically high groundwater levels and extensive CCTV footage of mainline, lateral […]

Stocksbridge WwTW is located in the village of Deepcar on the outskirts of Stocksbridge, approximately 7km northwest of Sheffield city centre. It currently serves a population of 13,000, but this is expected to grow towards 15,000 by 2030. Major housing development is ongoing near the existing works, and as part of this Yorkshire Water reached […]

Stromness is a town situated around the sheltered bay of Hamnavoe on the west of Orkney’s mainland. It has a population of approximately 2200 inhabitants and a population equivalent (PE) of 2,600, due to the local industry; which is expected to grow to 3,600 in the years ahead. The town has a dramatic and unique […]

Talybont is a Large raised reservoir situated in the Brecon Beacons National Park approximately 30 miles north of two of the most populated cities in Wales; namely Cardiff and Newport. Construction of Talybont Dam began in 1932 and ran through until 1939. It was conceived out of a requirement to supply treated water to the […]

Ten Acre Impounding Reservoir (IRE), located in Haverah Park near Harrogate, is owned and operated by Yorkshire Water (YWS). The reservoir is impounded by an earth-fill embankment dam, approximately 17m above natural ground level at the highest point, with a capacity of 150,000m3 at top water level. The reservoir was constructed by Harrogate Waterworks Company […]

Thames Water’s water distribution network totals some 31,000km of mains that provides about 2.6 billion litres of water every day. This network has been built up over many years and includes pipes that were laid during the Victorian age. Pressure management is an established way of leakage reduction and network protection, ensuring that customers receive […]

Southern Water has started the second phase of its major upgrade of the 100-year-old sewer network across Thanet, Kent. Representing an investment of circa £100m over AMPs 5, 6 and 7, the upgrade aims to maintain the integrity of the sewers, reduce the risk of flooding and protect the environment and chalk aquifer that spans […]

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a new storage and conveyance tunnel running through the centre of London, mostly under the River Thames. The main tunnel, which is approximately 25km long with a maximum internal diameter of 7.2m, will run from Acton in the west through to Abbey Mills in the east. The aim of the […]

The Hammersmith Pumping Station is one of Thames Water’s key sewerage assets in West London. Its catchment covers an area of around 19 square miles, receiving flows from 47 combined sewer overflows (CSOs). The pumping station discharges 51 times in a typical year releasing 2,210,000m3 of untreated sewage and an estimated 557 tonnes of sewage […]

Situated in Staffordshire, close to the Derbyshire border, Uttoxeter STW serves a mainly domestic population from the town itself. Following catchment modelling, it was determined that there will be significant growth in the population, reaching 24,498 population equivalent in 2035. This increased population would mean that the existing inlet works would not have sufficient capacity […]

Walsall Wood Sewage Treatment Works was a trickling filter site discharging into the Ford Brook, part of the River Tame catchment. Under the new Water Framework Directive, the site was required to comply with stringent new standards for phosphorus and ammonia levels in wastewater (BOD: 10 mg/l, NH3: 1.9 mg/l, Total P: 0.5 mg/l). The […]

Abandoned metal mines pollute approximately 1,500km of rivers in England and contribute about 50% of the cadmium, lead and zinc in surface waters despite most closing in the early 20th century. The WAMM (Water and Abandoned Metal Mines) Programme is a partnership between the Environment Agency, the Coal Authority and the Department for Environment, Food […]

Warland Impounding Reservoir (IR) is situated on the western slope of Blake Moor, above Littleborough, Lancashire. The reservoir was originally constructed around 1857 by the Rochdale Canal Company to maintain water levels in the Rochdale canal, and was considered to be one of the largest dams in England at the time. It has a 1500m […]

The Water Supply GRID is the largest scheme ever undertaken by Wessex Water and provides important new infrastructure for the south-west region with resilience connections to Bournemouth Water, Bristol Water and South West Water via Wimbleball Reservoir – it is effectively a south-west area regional grid (see Figure 1 below). It has improved interconnectivity within […]

Waterworks Bridge is an oblique three-span structure of approximately 30m length crossing the Waterworks River in Stratford, East London and forms a key part of the Greenway footpath and cycleway providing access to/from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from the south-east. Most significantly, Waterworks Bride houses a section of the Northern Outfall Sewer (NOS). Built […]

Woolston WwTW uses a conventional activated sludge plant (ASP), built in 1966, treating sewage flows from part of the Southampton conurbation, serving a population of approximately 62,000 people. The site occupies an area of 1.26 hectares. The existing sewerage system which feeds into the WwTW collects both wastewater and stormwater from the Woolston catchment area. […]

One of Affinity Water’s long-standing water treatment works (WTW) is to be upgraded following successful completion of industry leading research and development trials. By utilising a pioneering new technology, Affinity Water will be able to continue to deliver a high quality supply of water for customers and communities whilst continuing to operate a robust treatment […]

Ashford Wastewater Treatment Works is located in Kent alongside the M20 motorway, near the River Great Stour to the South of the Kent Downs (Area of Natural Beauty). The Town of Ashford has a population of approximately 110,000 people. The WwTW serves Ashford and surrounding areas and is supplied by five local pumping stations taking […]

Audley Borehole Pumping Station is one of Severn Trent Water’s (STW) borehole capital maintenance projects which supports the Peckforton Group in supplying potable water to Coopers Green Reservoir. As part of the £3m scheme, the project focuses on delivering resilience from Audley to maintain high quality water supply to the people in Staffordshire. Audley is […]

During investment period 2016/17, Scottish Water commenced the first phase of construction on a £120m investment project known as the Ayrshire Resilience Scheme, designed to improve the resilience of the drinking water network throughout much of Ayrshire and parts of East Renfrewshire. Once complete, this scheme will benefit more than 200,000 Scottish Water customers. Caledonia […]

The picturesque coastal town of Ballycastle is located on Northern Ireland’s scenic North Antrim Coast. This popular tourist spot attracts many visitors, who come to take in the beautiful scenery, as well as passing through on their trip along the famous Wild Atlantic Way. Visitors come from all over the world to see the nearby […]

Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands and is a Crown Dependency located off the coast of Normandy, France. The island is governed by the States of Jersey (SoJ) which has responsibility for the management of the Island’s finances and operation of its public services. Jersey does not sit within the European Union but […]

Following on from the Blackburn and Darwen WwTWs (2017) article, the site at Samlesbury, Blackburn, has been prepared for the construction of the 72,000m3 structure which will house the innovative Nereda® aerobic granular biomass technology. The Nereda® system will treat crude sewage that has only received preliminary treatment and has been developed to treat the […]

The Blackpool South Surface Water Strategy is a £30m scheme aimed at improving bathing water quality along Blackpool’s golden mile. The project tackles the combined challenges of climate change, an aging Victorian sewer network, increasing urbanisation and a responsive catchment. The project’s objectives are the reduction in frequency and quality improvement of spills within the […]

Bournemouth is served by a sewerage tunnel known as the Coastal Interceptor Sewer (CIS), an inverted ‘T’ configuration with two tunnels routed parallel to the coastline and a few hundred metres inland. The two tunnels are routed towards each other and form a confluence equidistant along the coast, turning north and heading inland towards the […]

The Southern Strategic Support Main (SSSM) comprises a 700mm diameter pipe line between Barrow WTW in south Bristol to Sandford, a distance of 19km, and a 600mm diameter pipe line between Cheddar WTW and Banwell a distance of 11km. The two pipelines connect at Sandford. The project commenced with a review of the outline proposal […]

At the height of the industrial revolution, Birmingham’s population was booming. Between 1800 and 1900, the city had grown substantially. An innovative solution was needed to provide its residents and industries with safe drinking water. James Mansergh had identified the Elan Valley as a source for water. With Birmingham located so far in land, the […]

The Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) is a Victorian water structure built between 1893 and 1904. The aqueduct transports water entirely by gravity from the Elan Valley in Wales to Frankley Water Treatment Works in Birmingham, and comprises a combination of cut and cover conduits, siphons and tunnels. Over 100 years on and this aqueduct still […]

The Birmingham Resilience Project aims to deliver a new water supply into Birmingham to allow extended planned maintenance shutdowns of the Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) as well as providing a back-up for any emergency events. The new supply will be brought into use every other year, for up to 50 days during months of October […]

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Elan Valley Aqueduct (EVA) has conveyed raw water 118km from the Elan Valley in Wales under gravity to Frankley Water Treatment Works (WTW) in Birmingham. The treatment works was inaugurated at the same time as the EVA and has treated water, to supply the residents and industries […]

At present, the UK wastewater treatment industry is facing an increasing number of challenges from a variety of different drivers both from a regulatory standpoint and with regards to increasing public awareness of pollution events. Such challenges include the need for a better effluent quality with low levels of phosphorus, ammonia, and total nitrogen (among […]

Chalton Water Recycling Centre Water Recycling Centre (WRC) receives influent from the north parts of Luton with an average flow of 240 l/s and a population equivalent of 89,000. The plant has to treat all flows with no storm overflow. The existing works is fed under gravity by three inverted siphons and has seen peak […]

The Southern Resilience Scheme is a new £27m water infrastructure project that provides improved security of water supply to a population of approximately 280,000 people across Bristol Water’s supply area. The scheme comprises a new 30km ductile iron main of 600mm and 700mm diameters, as well as the upgrade of the existing pumping station at […]

The town of Chorley, in Lancashire, is mainly residential and much of the surrounding land is dedicated to agriculture and heritage buildings. Chorley Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is located close to a small number of residential houses with a shared access road. C2V+, a joint venture between CH2M (now Jacobs) and VolkerStevin, was awarded a […]

A burst occurred in a section of 400mm DI rising main within the curtilage of Wessex Water’s Christchurch sewage recovery works in Dorset. The works serve a population in the adjacent catchment of 59,000. The location of the burst was close to a bend in the main, beneath a large diameter primary sedimentation tank, and […]

As of May 2017 there are 137 designated shellfish protected waters in England and of these, 25 are located within the South West Water region. It is estimated that the industry associated with shellfish production areas in the South West is worth £5.35m per annum (figure from EA based upon Shellfish Association of Great Britain […]

Cowleigh Distribution Service Reservoir (DSR) and Lower Wyche DSR are located to the north and south of Great Malvern, Worcestershire and are overlooked by the Malvern Hills. Cowleigh DSR receives water from Powick Pumping Station and the Southern Strategic Main, whilst Lower Wyche DSR receives water from Bromsberrow WTW which is borehole site. Severn Trent […]

Dalton Piercy Water Treatment Works (WTW) supplies an average demand of 32 Ml/d to ~45,000 properties and significant industrial customers in Hartlepool. The current site process includes UV disinfection, sodium hypochlorite dosing and orthophosphoric acid dosing. This article describes how Anglian Water’s @one Alliance successfully applied product-based delivery principles to the Dalton Piercy Manganese and […]

Of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water’s 85 (No.) Water Quality Zones (WQZs), 20 (No.) contribute 75% of the company’s targets to improve water quality and reliability. Detailed analysis has been carried out and documented in Zonal Study reports for these zones. These identified specific schemes, ranked in cost benefit order, presented in a standard plan and […]

Thames Water’s Deephams Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is located in Edmonton, North London and treats a 989,000 population. Three drainage catchment areas of Lea Valley, High Barnet and Tottenham flow to the works, the ninth largest plant in the UK. The original effluent treatment process was built between 1956-1966 and had been updated at various […]

The water industry is highly-regulated, most particularly to ensure that drinking water is safeguarded and fit for human consumption. The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), formed in 1990, holds responsibility for regulation in England and Wales. The DWI inspects the laboratories where water companies rigorously test their drinking water and ensure that water operations are of […]

United Utilities (UU) provides water and sewage services to around seven million people in the north-west of England. As energy is one of UU’s biggest costs the mantra is to use less, generate more and use the company’s assets in a smarter way. It was ‘getting smarter’ that led to pioneering Dynamic Demand. A few […]

East Tanfield Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is a Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) site located 11 miles north-west of the City of Durham and 9 miles south-west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It consists of two distinct sites: a ‘lower’ site comprising a terminal pumping station (TPS) with emergency storage tanks adjacent to the Houghwell Burn watercourse; and an […]

High Speed 2 (HS2) Phase 1 will intersect a large number of critical third-party assets along its 190km route, with a significant impact on several of the UK’s water and wastewater companies. In London, approximately 50kms of Thames Water’s buried assets are affected by construction of the new railway, including a number of highly strategic […]

Efficient phosphorus removal for tertiary phases of wastewater treatment works with low energy consumption

The town of Lytham St. Anne’s and its shoreline is a popular national and regional tourist destination and is linked to many attractions, modern and historic, including St. Anne’s Pier, Lytham Green, Royal Lytham Golf Club, Pleasure Island and Fairhaven Lake. The project is located near Lytham St. Anne’s in the Fylde borough of Lancashire, […]

Three of Southern Water’s underground storm tanks next to the historical Fort Cumberland have played a crucial part in helping to prevent homes in Portsmouth from sewage flooding during stormy weather. Although redundant, the old sea defences protecting the tanks needed replacing and strengthening, and ongoing maintenance is essential to preventing their contents polluting the […]

The Frome Valley Relief Sewer scheme represents a £15m capital investment by Wessex Water to provide additional capacity for the continued development within the North Bristol area. It is the third phase out of a total of four phases which will see wastewater flows diverted from South Gloucestershire to Avonmouth Sewage Treatment Works in Bristol […]

Galgorm Wastewater Pumping Station (WwPS) is located within a busy public car park in the centre of Galgorm village, approximately 3.5km to the west of Ballymena, Co. Antrim. The WwPS is accessed via a steep laneway off the A42, Fenaghy Road, adjacent to Galgorm roundabout. Galgorm WwPS passes forward flows to Tulllygarley Wastewater Treatment Works […]

Welsh Water’s Glascoed Water Treatment Works (WTW) is situated south of the village of Bodelwyddan in the county of Denbighshire. It was commissioned in 1994, with additions made in 1995 and 2009. The works supplies up to 20 Ml/d to customers along the North Wales coast. The works receives its supply of raw water from […]

Built under the Bradford Corporation Waterworks Act 1890, Gouthwaite Impounding Reservoir (IRE) forms the lowest of a cascade of three reservoirs in Upper Nidderdale, all designed by their chief waterworks engineer. The upper two reservoirs, Angram and Scar House, supply water along the Nidd Aqueduct to Bradford. Gouthwaite IRE was built 11km downstream to provide […]

Great Dunmow Water Recycling Centre (WRC) is located a few kilometres to the east of Stansted Airport in Essex and serves a population of approximately 10,000 people. Due to ongoing capacity limitations and operational issues in the existing works, Anglian Water elected to construct a new treatment plant on the site to serve the current […]

The small town of Hagley, Worcestershire is served by an ageing sewer network which drains the wastewater of the 6,000 inhabitants towards the large Milestone Drive Sewage Pumping Station. Following decades of growth, misconnections and increased urbanisation within the existing catchment, hydraulic pinch points on the foul sewer network subjected numerous clusters of low-lying properties […]

A ‘product-based’ approach to service reservoir construction is revolutionising the way MMB are constructing a new multi-million-pound distribution service reservoir (DSR) for Severn Trent Water (STW). To boost productivity in the construction process, the new 43ML reservoir is being treated as a ‘product’, manufactured largely off site in controlled-conditions, before being assembled on site near […]

Hayle STW is located at the end of the Hayle estuary in West Cornwall approximately 7 miles east of Penzance.The area immediately surrounding Hayle STW has a small population made up of St. Erth Village. The site itself is located within a large plot bordered to the north by the West Coast Main Line, and […]

Highworth Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is located at Pentylands Lane, Highworth to the northeast of Swindon. The treatment works currently serves a population of approximately 10,000 customers, with an average daily flow of 1,720m3 per day and a peak flow of 55 l/s. The works is Royal HaskoningDHV’s first full-scale Nereda plant in the UK. […]

Following decades of investment, the UK has a comprehensive sanitation system and a legacy of wastewater treatment plants. As environmental standards continue to tighten, many of these older assets require an upgrade to provide additional treatment capacity and to meet higher quality standards. The conventional approach for many years has been simple: build more tanks […]

Inverurie WwTW is located in Aberdeenshire in the north-east of Scotland and provides sewage treatment for Inverurie and the surrounding area including Blackburn, Kintore and Port Elphinstone. It currently serves a population of 28,000, but Inverurie is one of the most rapidly growing towns in terms of population in the UK, with an estimated population […]

Yorkshire Water’s Irton Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located 5.5km southwest of Scarborough in North Yorkshire. The WTW abstracts water from an aquifer via numerous boreholes and supplies two local service reservoirs; Springhill and Low Mount, which feed Scarborough and the surrounding area. Demand profiles are seasonably variable. The site has an abstraction licence for […]

Island Barn Reservoir is located in West Molesey near Hampton Court on the Surrey/London border. The reservoir is a non-impounding reservoir and is retained by an earth fill embankment with puddle clay core approximately 10.8m high and 2,700m long. The reservoir has a stated capacity of 4,191,000m3 and a surface area of 489,700m2, when full […]

Since 2010, the Risk Management Authorities (RMAs) for the Tyneside drainage catchment have developed and implemented an area-based prioritisation process to identify and investigate those drainage areas at greatest risk of performance failure. The Killingworth, Longbenton and Forest Hall area was one of those areas identified, something supported by the published 2010 Strategic Flood Risk […]

There was evidence of significant internal degradation and deterioration of the King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer in the vicinity of the Baker Street tube station London Underground tunnel. Degradation included significant cracking of the sewer brickwork as a consequence of considerable settlement of the LUL railway tunnel beneath. The sewer is situated beneath a key artery […]

The Yorkshire Water sewage sludge incinerator at Knostrop WwTW is approaching the end of its asset life in AMP7. This, along with high operating costs has driven a business need to review the long-term treatment of sludges in the Yorkshire/Leeds catchment. Following a strategy review, Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) decided to progress with conventional mesophilic […]

Llanfaethlu Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is situated to the north east of the village in Anglesey, North Wales and is owned and operated by Welsh Water. Constructed in the 1960s as a conventional gravitational treatment works, the process utilises primary settlement, stone media trickling filter and humus settlement discharging to a grass plot, together with […]

The Lochaline Water Quality Upgrade Project required the design and delivery of a whole new water treatment works at Lochaline in the remote Morven Peninsula. A modern and compact membrane based treatment technology was selected which would support a rapid and efficient delivery strategy. The key to the delivery strategy was an on off-site modular […]

Lockwood Reservoir is one of ten Walthamstow reservoirs in north London and makes up part of Walthamstow Wetlands; Europe’s largest urban wetland nature reserve. It is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Protected Area (SPA). The Wetlands attract 250,000 visitors a year and is a key site in London for […]

The installation of new eel and fish friendly screens at Northumbrian Water Group’s (NWG) Lumley Raw Water Pumping Station (RWPS) was the culmination of collaborative working between multiple stakeholders, to transform the screening methodology in an environmentally sensitive location. The final solution provides an option that presents immediate environmental benefits to aquatic life, with low […]

Between 2007 and 2014 two of Northumbrian Water’s (NWG) water supply zones, served by Whittle Dene WTW and Warkworth WTW, both in Northumberland, consistently received the highest number of water quality contacts for discoloured water. In previous AMP periods, NWG undertook a programme of strategic mains cleaning and unidirectional flushing to improve customer acceptability performance. […]

Melbourne WTW is the second largest clean water treatment works in Severn Trent Water (STW) and serves large population centres in south Derbyshire and Leicestershire with capability to supply up to a maximum of 250Ml/d. The dissolved air flotation (DAF) process removes suspended solids and other contaminants via the use of air bubble flotation. The […]

Melbourne Water Treatment Works (WTW) is situated in the eastern region of Severn Trent Water Ltd. It is the primary feed to 750,000 customers in the Leicestershire area. The original works was constructed in the 1960s and this was totally rebuilt in the 1990s and is capable of supplying up to 220MLD. In early 2016, […]

Minworth is Severn Trent Water’s (STW) largest sewage treatment works serving an population equivalent (PE) of 1.75 million from Birmingham, with a full flow to treatment of 1,070Ml/d. The plant treats sludge from a PE of 2.3 million, which is made up of indigenous sludge plus imported sludge. As part of Severn Trent’s Capital Investment […]

Minworth STW is Severn Trent’s largest sewage treatment works and serves a population equivalent of 1.75 million from Birmingham with full flow to treatment of 1,070Ml/d. The works treats sludge arising from a population equivalent of 2.3 million which is made up of indigenous sludge plus imported sludge from the nearby Coleshill STW and various […]

The Monmouthshire & Brecon (M&B) Canal is constructed on an embankment, with the village of Llangattock directly below in the Brecon Beacons National Park in Powys, Wales. The canal is picturesque with the backdrop of a Grade 2 listed lime kiln and passing over the watercourse, Nant Onnau via a large aqueduct. The canal was […]

The Morecambe sewerage system collects at Schola Green Wastewater Pumping Station (WwPS) located in the west end of the town. From there, flows for treatment are pumped via a 6km long pipeline to Morecambe Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW), which is situated to the south, near to the village of Middleton. Both sites have outfall pipelines […]

Morpeth is an historic market town in Northumberland, situated on the River Wansbeck. It has suffered extensively from flooding, experiencing 22 significant flood events since 1839. In 2008, over 1,000 properties in the town were flooded or affected by flooding. The main source of flooding has been from the River Wansbeck, with Cotting Burn, a […]

New Malden pipe-track contains 3 (No.) 30” and 1 (No.) 48” trunk mains, with the oldest main being nearly 170 years old. The mains feed the Surbiton supply zone and serve as bulk transfer mains to supply south-west London. Kingston Council is going to build a new cycleway over the track; however, these mains are […]

Welsh Water is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and protecting the environment from the effects of climate change and is pursuing measures to generate more of its own power from renewable sources. Welsh Water recently signed a five-year contract with Dong Energy to supply green energy to power its sites, as well as introducing […]

The Nine Elms redevelopment area within Battersea includes 21,000 new dwellings, office, leisure and retail space creating 8000 new jobs including the new US Embassy, a relocated New Covent Garden Market site and the Northern Line extension. An integrated water management study completed by Thames Water (TW) in partnership with the Greater London Authority, ARUP […]

Welsh Water set out its vision in its Sewage Sludge Strategy 2040 how it intended to deal with the number one waste management challenge all water utility providers face, the sustainable management and disposal of wastewater sludges. With ever tightening nutrient and heavy metal limits on agricultural usage, and more pressure than ever for companies […]

Located near Okehampton, Northcombe WTW supplies a large region of North Devon including Barnstaple, Bideford and South Molton. The works supplies over 88,000 customers, with around half of these relying on Northcombe as their sole supply of water. As standards for water quality change, South West water (SWW) has been issued a notice by the […]

Ogston Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located at Stretton, Higham in Derbyshire and it provides treated water to Higham, Ambergate and Whiteborough Reservoirs. The maximum works output is 76 mega litres per day (MLD) with an output for the New works DAF (dissolved air flotation) plant of 50 MLD. As part of the AMP6 coagulation […]

Long Marston Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is located approximately 4 miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire and until recently was treating wastewater from a population of 2,500 in Long Marston and Quinton. Significant development in the catchment will see the population served rise to approximately 15,000 over the next 20 years. The former Ministry of […]

The security landscape within the UK’s water industry has evolved beyond recognition since the advent of dedicated legislation twenty years ago. From the upgrade of service reservoir protection that rolled out from the late 1990s, to the mature and sophisticated levels of security that ramify through today’s network, UK water sets a world-class standard in […]

The European Union’s (EUs) revised Bathing Water Directive (rBWD) (2006/7/EC) came into force in March 2006 replacing Bathing Water Directive (BWD) (76/1160/EEC). The overall objective of the revised directive is the protection of public health. From November 2015, a new classification system for bathing waters (excellent, good, sufficient or poor) was introduced, with more stringent […]

Preston WwTW serves a population in excess of 250,000 and has six sub-catchments: Lytham, Fairhaven and Freckleton within the Fylde District to the west, Lea Gate and Watery Lane to the east within the Borough of Preston and Penwortham to the southwest within the South Ribble District. United Utilities (UU) has invested £20m during AMP6 […]

Prioress Mill Raw Water Pumping station (RWPS) is located in Rhadyr, near Llancayo, Monmouthshire, on the south bank of the River Usk. It abstracts at a rate of up to 318 ML/day, and is the primary supply to Llandegfedd reservoir, which then feeds Sluvad Water Treatment Works (WTW). Prioress Mill RWPS has been identified by […]

Why chasing efficiency is not the answer

Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) committed to the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s (DWI) compliance date of 31 December 2017 for beneficial completion of a new clarification process at Rivelin WTW. The £25m scheme required the design and construction of a large 82.5MLD buried treatment plant (80m long, 40m wide and 14m high) on the border of the […]

Big problems require bold solutions. That is what the Environment Agency (EA) is proposing with the River Thames Scheme. The EA is tasked with protecting one of the most developed, yet undefended, flood plains in England – the River Thames between Windsor in Berkshire and the western fringes of greater London – an area with […]

Oldham and Royton WwTWs, operated by United Utilities, are located approximately 4km apart, close to Manchester. The WwTWs were aging facilities, and in need of an upgrade for the river water quality to meet European standards, and to serve an increasing population of over 185,000. United Utilities considered various options to improve the wastewater treatment […]

Sheeplands WTW is a groundwater treatment plant supplying an average of 12Ml/d to the Bowsey Hill Service Reservoir and local district zones. The site comprises of three boreholes, a ‘blending’ raw water supply main received from Harpsden WTW, a nitrate removal plant, GAC vessels, sodium hypochlorite storage and dosing, sodium bisulphite storage and dosing, single […]

The Water 2020 report, published by the regulator Ofwat, encourages sludge trading markets between Water Authorities so that sludge can always be treated in the most cost effective way. Ofwat modelling suggests that if its proposed changes are implemented, around 30% of all sludge could move between different water companies. Sludge needs to be processed, […]

Caledonia Water Alliance (CWA) has been tasked with improving the water infrastructure network within Edinburgh and the Lothians, in partnership with Scottish Water. The Scottish Water project driver is CS16WR for Water Systems Resilience; associated with improving resilience of network supply. The project objective is to provide resilience in the wider water distribution network linked […]

The 2010 Shellfish Waters Directive placed a new obligation on South West Water (SWW) to endeavour to meet the Shellfish Waters Regulations ‘Guideline’ Standard. (Class B). The Shellfish Waters (SFW) programme of work was to meet legislative requirements to protect or improve designated shellfish waters to support shellfish life and growth, contributing to the quality […]

Stanbridgeford Sewage Treatment Works (STW), lies approximately one mile south of the village of Stanbridge in Bedfordshire and as of 2016, the population equivalent (PE) of the works was 15,305 and the domestic population served was 15,051. The treatment works discharge into the adjacent Ouzel Brook, a tributary of the River Great Ouse. Regulations from […]

Stanford Reservoir is an impounding reservoir that is located in the upper reaches of the River Avon. The catchment area of the reservoir is 55.2km2. This scheme was developed following a Section 10 Report (MWH – now Stantec UK – 2014), where after the re-categorisation of the reservoir from B to A, the Inspecting Engineer […]

Mott MacDonald Bentley (MMB) carried out an investigation for Yorkshire Water Services into the flooding of five properties in Queensbury in West Yorkshire during periods of heavy rainfall. The investigation concluded that the combined sewer system in the residential cul-de-sac had insufficient capacity during a 1 in 10-year storm return event, resulting in overland flow […]

In August 2010, Severn Trent commissioned its energy crop anaerobic digestion plant at Stoke Bardolph, Nottingham. It was built to help power the nearby sewage treatment works using crops grown on contaminated farmland which is not suitable for food production. The energy crop plant was sized to convert 37,000 tonnes of maize silage each year […]

Strongford STW is located at the north west end of Severn Trent’s region and covers a significant catchment in and around Stoke-on-Trent with a population equivalent of 350,000. The Strongford digestion plant currently processes 34 tonnes dry solid per day (tds/day) indigenous; and 14 tds/day liquid imports which includes 7 tds/day from the recently closed […]

Flooding is a major issue for many roadways in the United Kingdom and is becoming more and more common as we see heavier rainfall due to changing climatic conditions. This can cause a serious danger to drivers and it is important to provide solutions that help make travelling safe, regardless of the conditions. Heavy rainfall […]

The existing Swinstie Pipe Bridge is located near Cleland, North Lanarkshire, and the structure supports a 450mm diameter iron gravity sewer pipe across the narrow, steep sided river valley of the Swinstie Burn towards Swinstie WwTW. The existing pipe bridge dates from the 1950s and has exhibited signs of severe distress for a number of […]

The Environment Agency (EA) identified a number of waterbodies which were deemed to be at risk of deterioration or failure to achieve the Water Framework Directive (WFD) ‘good’ status due to the impacts from wet weather discharges from the urban wastewater network. Seventeen of these waterbodies were within the Thames Water region and the risk […]

Thames Tideway Tunnel is the largest water infrastructure project currently under construction in the UK and will modernise London’s major sewerage system, the backbone of which dates back to Victorian times. Although the sewers built in the mid-19th century are still in excellent structural condition, their hydraulic capacity was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette for […]

The Norfolk Broads is a low-lying landscape of interconnected lakes (broads) and streams and large parts are also Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and contain a number of protected species of flora and fauna. One area of the Norfolk Broads; the Trinity Broads, provides raw water to Ormesby Water Treatment Works (WTW) operated by […]

Tynywaun Water Treatment Works forms part of the South East Wales Conjunctive Use System (SEWCUS) chain of water treatment works that supply the central South Wales valleys and cities of Newport and Cardiff. This SEWCUS system does not, however, provide full conjunctive use to the Tynywaun distribution area, having very limited connectivity. The works has […]

Upper Chelburn Impounding Reservoir (IR), located near Rochdale on the east Lancashire moors, is owned and operated by United Utilities (UU), providing compensation water to the nearby Rochdale canal. The reservoir is impounded by northern and southern earth-fill embankments (Figure 1), with a resulting capacity of 236,000m3. The 16.5m high northern embankment was constructed between […]

Usk Reservoir in Brecon is situated south east of Llandovery and approximately 5km to the west of Sennybridge. The reservoir is an existing 12.3Mm3 reservoir in the Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales. It is impounded by a 31m high, 480m long embankment dam with a clay core, which was constructed in 1955. The […]

Originally built in 1965, Uttlesford Bridge Pumping Station near Saffron Walden consisted of two boreholes, a contact tank, booster pump suction tank and treatment by marginal chlorination. The licence at Uttlesford Bridge is a combined group licence with Springwell Farm of 13.64MLD. There are times during peak demand that up to 5MLD compensation flow is […]

Whittle Dene Water Treatment Works is Northumbrian Water’s fourth largest treatment works with a deployable output of 118Ml/d, supplying 228,000 properties. Located in Northumberland, 13 miles west of Newcastle, it is a strategically important works to Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Northumberland and Tyne Valley regions. Raw water at the site comes from adjacent reservoirs […]

Woodgate Hill Service Reservoir No. 2 (SR2) was commissioned in 1963, providing a total capacity of 269Ml and a throughput that equates to 20% of the regional water demand. The reservoir was built in to the hillside with an excavation of around 380,000m3. With a footprint of 47,000m2, at the time of construction, Woodgate Hill […]

Built in 1966, Woolston Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) uses a conventional Activated Sludge Plant (ASP) to treat sewage flows from part of the Southampton conurbation. Serving a population of approximately 62,000, the site occupies an area of 1.26 hectares. The existing sewerage system which feeds into the WwTW collects both wastewater and stormwater from the […]

Affinity Water’s largest water treatment works (WTW) is being upgraded as part of their AMP6 business plan to ensure they continue to provide a robust treatment solution for the removal of pesticides from water abstracted from the River Thames. The scope of the works is to increase the granular activated carbon empty bed contact time […]

Allonby Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is located to the north of the coastal town of Allonby, Cumbria, serving a population equivalent of less than 1000 within a dominantly rural catchment area. The works provides treatment via a three stage process, including rotating biological contactors (RBCs) and ultraviolet dosing. Allonby WwTW is situated on the coast […]

The existing Ambergate Reservoir was commissioned in 1907 and formed a part of the Derwent Valley Aqueduct receiving water from the Upper Derwent Valley. Water treated at Bamford WTW is delivered to Ambergate Reservoir by gravity via the aqueduct. The existing reservoir had a capacity of 128Ml supplying water to the cities of Derby, Nottingham […]

Wessex Water’s Bristol STW is the largest sewage treatment works within south west region, serving approximately a catchment of 1.1 million people. The works also accounts for more than 50% of region’s sludge treatment. It treats around 100 tonnes dry solid (TDS) per day of indigenous sludge as well as imported sludge to a compliant […]

Thames Water Utilities Ltd (TWUL), in consultation with the Environment Agency (EA) committed to cease Kennet Aquifer abstraction at Ogbourne WTW and reduce abstraction at Axford WTW by 31st March 2017. The Ogbourne licence has been reduced to zero whilst the Axford licence has been changed to a sliding scale dependent on flows in the […]

The Basingstoke Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) incorporates liquid and caked, raw sludge import facilities together with thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion plant which will process 53tDS/day of sludge from Basingstoke, Farnham, Fleet, Guilford and Newbury. This will fulfil Thames Water’s strategy to cease unsustainable liming activities at the four satellite sites up to the 2036 […]

Thames Water Utilities Limited (TWUL) currently transfer a proportion of the wastewater sludge generated by Beckton Sewage Treatment Works (STW) in East London to Riverside STW using 2 (No.) 8km buried pipelines. These twin pipelines were originally installed in the late 1960s to pump sludge in the opposite direction from Riverside to Beckton where it […]

The Southport Demand Monitoring Zone (DMZ) comprises ten supply zones with a population of approximately 245,000 covering the majority of the areas of the District Councils of West Lancashire and Sefton. Southport DMZ suffers from a number of issues including (i) peak demand during the summer months (ii) population growth (iii) water management. To overcome […]

BIM seems to be a term that has a marmite effect on people; they love it or hate it. Often the perception that is held of BIM is whether it is interpreted as ‘Building Information Modelling’ or ‘Better Information Management’. The BIM4Water Owner Operators Group definitely see BIM as driving ‘Better Information Management’. In some […]

Blackburn and Darwen WwTWs are two of United Utilities’ major treatment works and are located near the former mill town of Blackburn, Lancashire. The Blackburn and Darwen WwTW Integrated Solution (BDIS) project combines new river water quality and bathing water drivers at these two works into a single integrated project. The integrated approach will give […]

National Trust’s 32ha (80 acre) property at Bodnant Garden in North Wales hosts over 225,000 visitors a year and the numbers continue to increase. The historic Grade I listed gardens are famous for the earliest and grandest laburnum arch, five national collections and UK Champion trees. Flooding has repeatedly caused damage to the paths and […]

Hull’s response to the 2007 flooding that affected thousands of homes in the Bransholme catchment is now complete and operational. This saw Yorkshire Water appoint Black & Veatch (now Binnies) to carry out a feasibility study followed by a design and build contract for a new pumping station. The new Bransholme Surface Water Pumping Station (SWPS), […]

Burnham Jetty is the only ‘poor’ bathing water site in the Wessex Water region as categorised by the EU Revised Bathing Water Directive. Wessex Water has been working with the Environment Agency and committed £39 million to 12 schemes to improve this rating. Bristol Road Sewer Pumping Station (SPS) and Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) rebuild […]

At the height of the industrial revolution, Birmingham’s population was booming. Between 1800 and 1900, the city had grown substantially. An innovative solution was needed to provide its residents and industries with safe drinking water. James Mansergh had identified the Elan Valley as a source for water. With Birmingham located so far in land, the […]

Frankley Water treatment Works (WTW) provides a potable water supply to the metropolitan area of Birmingham, and has done so for over a century. Currently it treats water that is conveyed by gravity from the Elan Valley in Powys, Wales. Severn Trent Water is in the process of upgrading Frankley WTW to accommodate a new […]

Yorkshire Water’s Butterley Reservoir is located in the Wessenden Valley, West Yorkshire, with construction completed in 1906. The reservoir dam has a puddle clay core and a spillway constructed with local traditional stone. Due to fissures in the surrounding rock, leakages around the dam were experienced during the original commissioning phase, leading to a longer […]

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) is carrying out a strategic package of works in the Llanelli and Gowerton catchments with the aim of reducing spills into the Loughor Estuary. Bynea Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) is a key asset, receiving sewage flows from the local catchment and transferring them to Llanelli WwTW. The site originally operated […]

The Cambrian catchment has a population of 4,500 and is located in Llanelli, South Wales. The catchment is predominantly served by combined sewers with a combined sewer overflow (CSO) at Cambrian Sewage Pumping Station (SPS). The CSO discharges approximately 52 times per year (54,000m3 per year) into the Loughor Estuary, a designated Shellfish Water. The […]

The £7.7m project to stabilise and improve 1km of flood defence embankment was initiated by the 2013 tidal surge. This caused widespread flooding to the east coast and raised water levels by over 1.5m in the Dutch River. Post-event inspection highlighted that this length of channel side was at high risk of failure and could […]

Following a burst on the existing 24” trunk main running along the Oxford Eastern Bypass in September 2014 causing severe flooding, Thames Water made the decision to replace the high risk section of the main to prevent future pipe failures. The Optimise Joint Venture delivered the £6m project, installing 2km of replacement trunk main along […]

Davyhulme WwTW is United Utilities’ largest wastewater treatment works, which serves over one million people in Greater Manchester; it has been undergoing a £200 million modernisation process, which started on site in 2015 and is now close to construction completion. The upgrade is required to ensure it complies with tighter discharge consents and the impact […]

In March 2015 Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) launched the biggest Welsh coastal investigation and modelling project ever undertaken to enhance its understanding of the factors affecting water quality at 49 sites (29 bathing waters and 20 shellfish waters) along the entire Welsh coastline. The evidence gathered from this study will allow DCWW to assess […]

While the investment by the regulated water sector of England and Wales is governed by a five-yearly cycle, this investment relates to what are long-lived assets. Decisions about when to undertake capital investment and what to include in a capital programme have a direct bearing on the operating costs associated with the assets. Ultimately the […]

Digley Impounding Reservoir (IRE) is located in Holmbridge, Huddersfield. The valve tower associated with the reservoir had corroded access metalwork which did not meet current health and safety standards. The project replaced all the corroded access metalwork within the valve tower with new Yorkshire Water Asset Standard compliant metalwork, improving safe access within the tower. […]

East Worthing WwTW in Lancing serves the Worthing and Sompting catchments in West Sussex, located on the south coast of England. The works provides treatment capacity to a population equivalent of 136,000, which is expected to rise to 155,000 by 2030. East Worthing WwTW is an activated sludge plant providing secondary treatment for flows up […]

Portsmouth Water’s Farlington WTW dates back to 1909 and provides potable water to more than 280,000 people and many businesses in the Portsmouth and Havant area. Farlington’s supply is derived from the springs, which are believed to be the largest spring source in Europe. In April 2015 Portsmouth Water issued a tender based on an […]

The Flamborough Head Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) is located close to a scheduled monument, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, within a local nature reserve, adjacent to a Special Area of Conservation and Special Protection Area and is home to guillemots, puffins, dolphins and porpoises. The area is also a major tourist attraction, enticing thousands […]

Fluxton and Ottery St Mary STWs are located in the Otter Valley, East Devon. The town of Ottery St Mary has a population of 4898 and is situated on the River Otter, approximately 10 miles east of Exeter, and the nearby hamlet of Fluxton has a population of approximately 99. The Fluxton site itself is […]

In November 2016, Southern Water commissioned Mott MacDonald to conduct a study to examine the opportunities for devising possible habitat enhancement options via an Intertidal Habitat Enhancement Plan (IHEP). The aim of the study was to identify enhancement options that would be available to Southern Water to support coastal biodiversity in the intertidal zone adjacent […]

Built in 1987, the Foss Barrier forms an important part of the flood defences for the city of York. When a flood event is predicted, a mechanical gate can be closed to prevent rising waters in the River Ouse from backing up into the River Foss, preventing flooding to a large part of the city. […]

Scottish Water has undertaken a £120m drinking water improvement scheme in Ayrshire to meet water quality compliance objectives and provide increased resilience of supply to five operational areas. The scheme involves the transfer of water from the Milngavie WTW located north of Glasgow to the Ayrshire region southwest of the city. The scheme makes use […]

The Granary Culvert is a 60m long channel with a 6m span. It has a 2.5m headroom and forms a section of Worsley Brook. The 150 year-old brick culvert had suffered structural defects. These included some full section cracking, ring delamination, heavy deformation to the barrel, and rotation to the abutment. Sections were in such […]

Severn Trent Water has completed the £1m Heanor Breach Road Flood Alleviation Scheme which will reduce the flooding witnessed by numerous properties on Breach Road, Heanor. The scheme works by quickly conveying the combined sewer water away from the properties at risk of flooding and safely storing it in a 163m long 2.1m diameter tunnel. […]

Heigham Water Treatment Works (WTW) is the main supply of water to Norwich and supplies an average of 42Ml/d of water sourced from the River Wensum at several locations. Potable water is pumped into the Norwich Public Water Supply Zone feeding a multitude of storage reservoirs, booster pumps and properties. The main raw water abstraction […]

Hesketh Bank Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) serves a population of approximately 5,800. The catchment of this Lancashire village is mainly residential and much of the surrounding land is dedicated to agriculture. The treatment works is on the edge of the village and is situated close to the River Douglas, near its confluence with the Ribble […]

At the start of construction for the Hanningfield Raw Water Reservoir, an Act of Parliament The Hanningfield Water Order 1950 was passed with agreements put in place for the maintenance of the lock between the navigation company (Essex Waterways) and Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), parent company of Essex and Suffolk Water. NWG abstracts water from […]

Hoplands Farm WTW is a South East Water treatment plant serving the local towns of Herne Bay and Canterbury. Raw water is pumped via submersible borehole pumps from two chalk boreholes located within the works. The total flow from these boreholes is a maximum of 79 l/s. The raw flows are super-chlorinated and then passed […]

Northumbrian Water’s Horsley WTW serves around 800,000 people in the Newcastle and Tyneside area. The original works was constructed in 1977 and last extended in 2003. It draws its supply from the nearby River Tyne at Ovingham and the Whittle Dene complex of reservoirs fed from Kielder Water. The existing works has a capacity of […]

Howden Reservoir is the first of three reservoirs owned by Severn Trent Water in the Upper Derwent Valley. The reservoir is bounded at its southern end by Howden Dam which impounds the River Derwent and overflows to Derwent Reservoir which in turn overflows to Ladybower Reservoir. Work commenced on the dam’s construction on 16 July […]

Peel Ports required the widening of the Seaforth Passage (Figure 1) within the Royal Seaforth Dock at the Port of Liverpool. The increasing size of modern vessels led to a need to increase the width of the Seaforth Passage, in order to improve the turnaround times for the larger vessels within tidal windows. Farrans Construction […]

Ipswich’s position on the estuary of the River Orwell in Suffolk makes it susceptible to both fluvial and tidal flooding. The Ipswich Tidal Barrier Project is the final element of a £58m programme of work by the Environment Agency (EA), to upgrade the flood defences on the East and West bank of the tidal river […]

An existing, but ageing, 33”-36” diameter potable water main supplying over 40,000 customers in Ayrshire was identified by Scottish Water as requiring replacement. The existing pipeline was to be replaced with a new pipeline constructed of polyethylene (PE) pipe sections butt-fusion welded into 200m long pipe strings. Caledonia Water Alliance (CWA), a joint venture between […]

The small island of Iona itself lies off the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast and is widely regarded as the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland. To the current day, Iona and its monastery has been a renowned centre of religious learning and pilgrimage and the Abbey is one of […]

Kingston Water Treatment Works (WTW) is located within a 10 minute drive from Canterbury town centre and the train station. The treatment works is located within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and is surrounded on three sides by a mature wooded area and on one side by two residential properties. Raw […]

The complexity of the flooding issues associated with the low lying properties on Linnet Rise was investigated following secured funding from Severn Trent Water. Under the AMP6 framework agreement NMCNomenca (now Galliford Try) was appointed as design and build contractor and worked closely with the STW solution team to develop the best TOTEX solution for […]

As part of the Thames Water AMP5 programme of works, Optimise was instructed to carry out an upgrade to the terminal pump station feeding Oxford STW located in Littlemore, Oxford. The terminal pump station handles flow from a population of 200,000 and the condition of the station was of considerable concern to the Environment Agency, […]

Llyn Teifi Reservoir is situated in a remote area on the western slopes of the Cambrian Mountains in Ceredigion, west Wales, and was created in the early 1960s by raising a natural lake. It is impounded behind six embankments constructed across natural low spots along its south-western margin, covering an area of just over 25 […]

The UK has a tremendous legacy of tunnel construction over the last 150 years, from Joseph Bazalgette’s brick sewers in London, through to reinforced concrete designs based upon early engineers such as François Hennebique. Wessex Water has a considerable cumulative metreage of tunnels constructed over the last 150 years, up to 5 metres in diameter, […]

Service reservoirs play a key, if sometimes unsung, role in the supply of clean water within the UK. While most are far less visible and well known than the open reservoirs and other sources they serve, they balance supply and peak demand and ensure that customers’ taps never run dry. The refurbishment of one such […]

As part of the South West Water Delivery Alliance H5O’s capital improvements programme, the Maltsters Sewage Pumping Station (SPS) Rising Main was identified for improvement after seven historic bursts within the last two years. This rising main is situated near the picturesque village of Tuckenhay, Devon, on the Harbourne River which converges with the River […]

In 2008, Southern Water completed significant improvements to the wastewater treatment infrastructure serving the North Thanet catchments of Margate and Broadstairs to meet the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. The existing marine head works at Joss Bay, Broadstairs and at North Foreland, Margate were upgraded to process screened flows and remove grit, […]

South West Water (SWW) has an ODI target to supply 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. This translates to a volume target of 50GWh renewable output within the final year of K6. This project will contribute 9.4GWh towards this 50GWh target by 2020 by optimising six sludge treatment centres (STCs), which operate […]

The innovative use of a spray applied structural concrete ‘shotcrete’ lining is a cost and programme effective alternative to ‘traditional’ in situ or precast concrete repair, or re-construction of masonry reservoir spillways. This construction methodology was used successfully across three masonry spillways of varying geometries to prolong the operational life of the ageing structures, whilst […]

Minworth STW is Severn Trent Water’s largest sewage treatment works and serves a population equivalent of 1.75 million from Birmingham with full flow to treatment of 1,070Ml/d. The works treats sludge arising from a population equivalent of 2.3 million which is made up of indigenous sludge plus imported sludge from the nearby Coleshill STW and […]

Mogden Sewage Treatment Works is the second largest in the UK. The first phase was built between 1931 and 1935 at a cost of £1.7 million and covers an area of 55 hectares. The facility treats wastewater from a population equivalent of 1.9 million across a 60 square mile catchment area of north and west […]

Nereda® is an innovative, sustainable and cost-effective biological wastewater treatment technology that purifies water using the unique features of aerobic granular biomass; purifying bacteria that create compact granules with superb settling properties. The technology was originally discovered by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and developed in a unique public-private partnership between the […]

Netheridge Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is one of Severn Trent Water’s key sites in the south west of the region serving the city of Gloucester, discharging final effluent to the River Severn. The works currently serves a population equivalent of 197,940 which is predicted to increase to 218,815 by the 2034-35 design horizon. The site […]

Mott MacDonald Bentley (MMB) has been delivering the Wastewater Minor Works sub-programme for the Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) since 2006 with the number of schemes delivered annually increasing year-on-year. The team must deliver schemes for less than £150,000, and are targeted at maintaining wastewater compliance. The projects are batched where practicable, and estimated efficiencies in […]

United Utilities is the regional water company for the north west of England, delivering water and wastewater services to 7m people from Cheshire to the Scottish border. Oldham WwTW and Royton WwTW are two major treatment works located in Oldham, to the north east of Manchester. The Oldham and Royton Integrated Strategy (ORIS) project combines […]

The existing combined sewerage system in the area did not have the capacity to take the increase in flow from these two major developments; therefore a new storm sewer was required. The project has also given NI Water the opportunity to update the 1930s combined drainage system in the area by the removal of significant […]

The original Outwoods Reservoir (No.1) was constructed in 1882 in Burton on Trent. An additional Reservoir (No.2) was added in 1962 in response to increased demand on supply. In 2017, South Staffs Water awarded Stonbury the contract to replace Reservoir No.1 which has proven increasingly expensive to update and maintain and was taken out of […]

Papplewick Borehole Pumping Station (BPS) is located near to Papplewick Village in Nottinghamshire. The site is located within the boundaries of the original and now historic and English Heritage protected site. The scheme replaced the existing outdated and none regulative equipment with a new ultra violet disinfection plant. The team fulfilled their obligations ensuring water […]

During two decades of working to legislated levels of security for physical access, the UK water industry has ushered a revolution in certified physical protection. While meeting this critical and immovable benchmark of resilience, solutions in AMP6 are pushing the envelope in design and functionality as never before. Security performance, of course, remains king, but […]

The £2.25m Poolend and Highate pH Correction and Plumbosolvency Scheme required the design and construction of a 20Ml/d treatment plant. Poolend BPS is located near Leek in Staffordshire. Water from Poolend and Highgate is blended with water from other sources and supplies thousands of properties across Staffordshire. The successful completion of the scheme by design […]

The advance JV Southport DMZ project for United Utilities required the installation of 30km of new clean water main across the West Lancashire area. This installation required the crossing of no fewer than 15 watercourses, each of which had the potential for water voles (a species protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act) meaning further […]

The concept of sewage treatment plants as energy factories originated in the Netherlands in the early 2000s, and Sweco (formally Grontmij) was a founder member of the Dutch-led ‘Energy Factory’ projects. Sweco then expanded the potential benefits, prompting a 2012 rebrand to ‘The ReGenerator® Concept’. The ReGenerator® methodology sees Sweco sourcing new pan-European sustainable technologies […]

Retford STW is located to the north of the town of Retford, Nottinghamshire. It serves a population of approximately 26,000. The project was to address capital maintenance works which includes the replacement/refurbishment of expired life items and the addressing of operational risks. The inlet works screens were capturing approximately 15% rags which was creating a […]

An application for first time sewerage has been made under Section 101A of the Water Industry Act 1991. The application requests Severn Trent Water (STW) provide access to a public sewer for 28 duty (polluting) properties in the Iron Cross, Rushford and Pitchill settlements in the area to the west of Salford Priors, Warwickshire. An […]

Yorkshire Water’s Saltend WwTW had a history of environmental under-performance which resulted in a significant number of customer complaints due to odour. Between September 2015 and May 2016, £18m of refurbishment and upgrade work was carried out on a fast track basis to improve this performance. Commercial arrangements were adjusted from normal framework conditions to […]

There is increasing pressure on water utilities to reduce their levels of leakage. The man-hour effort required to find and locate leaks only gets greater as network managers struggle to reduce leakage to lower levels. Costs associated with the treatment and distribution of water can be high and the penalties that utilities can face for […]

DG2 (Director General 2) is a status where, according to Ofwat, a customer receives inadequate water pressure generally under 1bar at their point of connection to the water main. Water companies are subject to annual regulatory fines for properties on the DG2 register above a threshold. Severn Trent Water arranges its distribution to cater for […]

Shirebrook STW is located approximately 5 miles north of Mansfield town centre and caters for a population equivalent (PE) of 12,000. As part of the AMP6 Chemical Investigations Programme, Severn Trent Water is required to carry out a full scale trial of a ‘proprietary’ iron dosed sand filter plant on a works serving between 10,000 […]

United Utilities (UU) is the statutory undertaker for 132 impounding reservoirs (IRs) retained by earth-fill embankment dams which fall under the requirements of the 1975 Reservoir Act. Before the era of ‘Pennine’ type clay core construction techniques, many impounding reservoirs that were constructed around the turn of the nineteenth century were substantially homogenous, comprising of […]

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) is investing in technologies to generate electricity on its sites in order to reduce their carbon footprint and the amount of imported energy. DCWW has already implemented technologies including solar photovoltaic panels, hydro turbines and gas-to-grid; however the new wind turbine at Swansea is their first wind generation site. Swansea […]

Tamar WTW was constructed in the mid 1970s and is located on the Cornwall/Devon border near Bude/Kilkhampton. Raw water is transferred to site by gravity pipework from Upper Tamer Lakes Reservoir. The works has a maximum output of 9.0 Ml/d and treated water is pumped by 2 (No.) sets of on-site high lift pumps to […]

At the 2014 Price Review in England & Wales, the economic regulator Ofwat (2013) gave water companies a challenging set of objectives in preparing their business plans. These included a major shift towards outcomes-based regulation, with all business plan investment requirements being justified on the basis of outcomes for customers and the environment, and with […]

London’s sewerage system was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in the 1850s, for a population of four million people. Whilst the Victorian sewers are still in excellent working condition, they are struggling to cope with the demands of the city’s growth. Every year, tens of millions of tonnes of raw sewage pour into the River […]

Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) provides water services to 1.5 million customers across a large part of Essex and east London, where it operates as Essex and Suffolk Water. As a vital part of Northumbrian Water’s treated water network, demand up to 55Ml/d is pumped from the Langham WTW on the Essex/Suffolk borders and forward boosted […]

Centrally positioned within the South Lakeland peninsula and on the border of the Lake District National Park, Ulverston is a busy Cumbrian market town with a population of around 12,000 people. The town is arguably most famous as being the birthplace of Stan Laurel, one half of the legendary comedy duo ‘Laurel & Hardy’, to […]

In recent years there have been a number of complex bursts at the edge of the M20 motorway in Kent, where three trunk mains cross via an existing tunnel. The bursts have compromised the security of supply between South East Water’s (SEW) Trosley Pumping Station and Beech Reservoir and also flooded onto the hard shoulder […]

Tynywaun WTW is located at the north end of the Rhondda Fawr Valley, at the base of the Rhigos Mountain, in the village of Tynewydd at an elevation of 1,000 feet. Water treatment works have operated at the Tynywaun site since 1906 and the existing works was last refurbished during the 1990s, with new filters […]

Under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) all water environments in the UK must meet ‘Good Chemical Status’ for a number of chemicals. The chemicals cover a range of over 70 substances (often referred to generically as priority substances) including metals, pharmaceuticals, combustion products and regular sanitary determinands (including phosphorus). The Environment Agency instigated a national […]

UK introduction of the revolutionary Volute disc press at Nigg WwTW leads to significant savings through high efficiency sludge treatment

The £3.3m Wallgrange Solvents and pH Improvements Scheme required the replacement of two existing borehole pumps and the design and construction of a water treatment works sized to treat 20ML/day. The installation of this treatment works has directly addressed a number of water quality issues and has delivered a more resilient supply to thousands of […]

In January 2010 the Eels (England and Wales) Regulations 2009 came into force which gave the Environment Agency new powers to protect and to conserve the population of eels in the rivers of England and Wales. The abstraction point for Thames Water’s Walton Advanced Water Treatment Works in Walton, Surrey, removed a maximum of 900ML/D […]

August 2016 saw the successful completion of a new 2.5 kilometre long sea outfall pipeline on the east coast of Yorkshire, South of Scarborough. The purpose of the project was to replace an existing corroded and collapsed steel outfall pipe with a new solid wall polyethylene (PE) pipeline. The installation required meticulous planning by a […]

Northumbrian Water is required to provide investment to reduce spills at Whitburn and St Peter’s, Sunderland in order to comply with the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) by December 2017. Sunderland (north) is an urban catchment of predominantly residential properties and is home to Sunderland’s Blue Flag award winning beaches at […]

County Wicklow is situated on the east coast of Ireland, south of Dublin. Kilcoole WwTP is located off Sea Road and the surrounding topography is agricultural farmland. The WwTP at Kilpedder is a bordered by woodlands and private dwellings, while access to Redcross WwTP is by a caravan park in Redcross. All three sites are […]

Between 2011 to 2013, Southern Water invested £14m replacing old water mains in the Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester. An additional £8 million is now being invested to replace a further 28km of 85-year-old water mains and service pipes to further improve water supply pipes and reduce the risk of discoloured water. The Chatham supply zone […]

Built in 1966, Southern Water’s Woolston WwTW uses conventional activated sludge plant (ASP) to treat sewage flows from part of the Southampton conurbation, serving a population of approximately 62,000 people. The site occupies an area of 1.26 hectares. The existing sewerage system which feeds into the WwTW collects both wastewater and stormwater from the Woolston […]

Anchorsholme Park is located on the coast 4 miles north of Blackpool Tower. The storage project is the first of two phases contributing to improving bathing waters on the Fylde coast. The objective of the initial phase is to complete the AMP5 obligations on the Fylde Coast of the “moving towards three spills per bathing […]

Scottish Water has recently commenced the first phase of construction on a £120m investment project designed to improve the drinking water network throughout much of Ayrshire and parts of East Renfrewshire. The project involves the installation of a new large diameter strategic water main from Newton Mearns continuing down towards the Fenwick/Waterside area and finally […]

Bakewell is located in the heart of the Peak District National Park and as such attracts thousands of visitors each year. Bakewell is a thriving town with a cattle market that trades every Tuesday, a showground that hosts numerous national events each year and is a great base to explore the surrounding National Park. Bakewell […]

The Ballydougan to Newry Strategic Trunk Mains Project is the culmination of 10 years work and a £20m investment by NI Water to provide a strategic water main between Ballydougan Command Reservoir, supplied from Castor Bay WTW, and the Newry area. NI Water’s Water Resource Strategy identified the need for a number of strategic links […]

Project Omega is a 25 year Public Private Partnership contract issued by Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) to upgrade, operate and maintain existing wastewater treatment works (WwTW) and wastewater pumping stations (WwPS) at a number of locations across Northern Ireland, equivalent to approximately 25% of the province’s wastewater treatment capacity. The contract also provides a […]

In May 2015 Thames Water Operations identified emergency works on Activated Sludge Plant (ASP) 2 at Beckton STW in east London. The work was necessary to address the asset health and resilience of the treatment works, meet performance commitments and ensure satisfactory sludge disposal. The project was a fast track design and implementation with early […]

Belle Greve Outfalls Replacement is the fifth and final phase of the Belle Greve Wastewater Centre (BGWwC) strategy to provide suitable wastewater treatment and disposal capability for the island of Guernsey. The strategy commenced in 2007 and was completed in 2015 with the replacement of the long sea outfall (LSO) and short sea outfall (SSO). […]

Blymhill STW is a small rural RBC and reed bed STW based in south Staffordshire which treats flows from a PE of about 551. This was set to increase to a design population of 844 PE due to predicted non-residential domestic load. The catchment consists of several individual villages, plus the non-domestic contribution from Weston […]