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Southern Water has awarded £65 million worth of contracts to a joint venture between Costain and MWH Treatment.
The contractors will be charged with carrying out a number of infrastructure upgrades on Southern’s network until late 2025.
Specific projects include improving the resilience of the local water supply and upgrading the wastewater treatment works at Testwood near Southampton, and Burham in Kent.
The joint venture will work closely with Southern Water and its engineers across both sites through to the end of the current asset management period (AMP7).
Both sites will benefit from major renovation, refurbishment and expansion of existing assets to cope with rising demand for drinking water and increasing volumes of wastewater.
At Testwood Water Supply Works, the contractors will be refurbishing and making improvements to abstraction points from the River Test, pumping stations and flow and filtration assets.
The work will also include upgrading the rapid gravity filtration facilities and repurposing contact reservoir tanks at the site.
At Burham Water Supply Works, the joint venture will carry out improvements including a full refurbishment of the low lift pumping station and granular activated carbon filters, and site-wide chemical dosing upgrades.
They will also work on a number of upgrades to improve the resilience of the water treatment works, including increasing the usable volume of the lake that feeds the site.
Chris Hodgson, programme director for the joint venture, said: “Southern Water is upgrading its infrastructure to ensure it continues providing clean drinking water to its customers while improving resilience for the future.
“This is important work that will have a transformative impact on the lives of residents and local communities.
“We will continue to deliver innovative solutions to Southern Water, to not only ensure we support them in meeting their regulatory obligations, but also to add value by identifying opportunities to increase efficiencies.”
Tim McMahon, director of water at Southern Water, added: “We have an excellent track record of working with Costain as part of the CMDP joint venture and we are looking forward to collaborating with them once again for this crucial work.
“With a changing environment and a growing population, it is important that we make strategic investments to upgrade facilities and ensure they are fit-for-purpose for the long-term.”
Southern Water is planning to significantly increase its infrastructure upgrades during the next asset management period.
Its PR24 plan specifies spending £600 million on upgrading 38 sewage works to meet statutory nutrient requirements.
On the supply side, investment will be directed at lowering abstraction by 10%; modernising four treatment works that serve two-thirds of the customer base; delivering 189 megalitres of additional resource capacity by 2035 with new recycling plants and pipelines; rolling out more than one million smart water meters as part of the Target 100 programme; and lowering leakage rates from 17% to 13% by 2030 with an investment of £517 million during AMP8.
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