Acomb Landing, York

Cliffords Tower in York A new treatment works is being built in York to ensure residents in the city continue to benefit from some of the best quality drinking water in the world.

The new £16 million works will replace the current water treatment works which has provided drinking water to residents of York since 1846. Over the years, the site has been extended to meet supply and water quality standards, but ageing equipment has meant that the treatment process is especially labour intensive and since 1999 the plant's capacity has been downsized with only two of the four treatment streams currently operational.

Improving water quality

Child with glass of water The new treatment works will not only be able to treat more water - around 35,000,000 litres everyday - but it will also boast state-of-the-art treatment facilities which will ensure it exceeds stringent water quality standards, with residents of York receiving better quality drinking water than ever before.

The work will also ensure that the new plant complies with the European Freshwater Fisheries Habitat Directive which relates to the protection of fresh water fish and the screening required to prevent such species being accidentally pulled into the treatment works as water is abstracted from the River Ouse.

What the work involves

Plans for the new works involve building a new plant and access road along with a high voltage electricity sub-station and a pump control panel kiosk.

Our contractors Earth Tech Morrison started work in May 2011 and plan to finish by the end of 2012.

Our work will be entirely contained within our existing site and at no stage will we need access to customers' properties. You may notice some construction vehicles entering and leaving our site and we are working hard to ensure that any disruption caused by extra lorry movements is kept to an absolute minimum.
We'd like to remind local residents to be on their guard for bogus callers. We and anyone working on our behalf always carry ID cards and we'll be happy to show you if we call at your door.

Claire Glavina, Community engagement team

This investment further underlines our commitment to ensuring residents of York continue to benefit from some of the highest quality drinking water in the world. An enormous amount of planning and care has gone into ensuring we have the ideal solution in place to not only benefit customers but also to ensure we continue to meet increasingly tough drinking water standards whilst also enabling us to make a positive difference from an environmental point of view.

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