South East Water is investing £39 million on a state-of-the-art water treatment works on the site of the old Aylesford Newsprint. The project will see 20 million litres of fresh drinking water treated per day for the Ashford and Maidstone area.
Expected to be completed in the summer of 2025, the treatment works is still very much a building site, but the amazing work that the teams are doing has already started to pay off.
From the M20 you will be able to see the large, grey building that has now been erected with a roof and cladding being applied to the outside, this has been built to cover the five large concrete hydrocarbon filters, cartridge filter and UV disinfection system as well as doubling as an office space and canteen for staff that will be on-site.
Boreholes have been drilled at several key points around the site to supply the treatment works with the raw water it will treat so it’s safe to drink before it is pumped to customers properties.
A concrete, treated water contact tank which will hold the treated drinking water for a short period before it’s pumped into supply, is also nearing completion.
The tank itself is cleverly designed with two chambers so that each chamber can be used independently and helps in the event of having to shut down or reduce water production. The tank was filled with water as part of the construction testing process (hydrostatic test) to ensure it can hold water without leaking.
Keep an eye on this web page for any updates.
Watch this video to see the progress of the site.
FAQs
When Aylesford Newsprint was in operation it had its own water storage tank and sourced water from a number of onsite and offsite boreholes. By upgrading the infrastructure already in place to ensure it reaches drinking water quality standards, we are able to efficiently make use of these existing facilities – reducing costs and impact on the area.
Plans for the new treatment works were initially put forward in our Water Resources Management Plan 2019.(opens in a new tab)
Yes. We have purchased a parcel of land surrounding the existing water storage tank enabling us to build a new water treatment works, we have also purchased the abstraction licence Aylesford Newsprint had for abstracting water at this location.
The temporary water treatment works is used during periods of hot weather to provide additional water to the area. Equipment will be dismantled once the new treatment works is built.
Construction is taking place within the old Aylesford Newsprint site and therefore the disruption to the community will be very minimal. There may be some additional vehicle movements and minor noise disruption to the immediate area which we are really sorry for. We will, of course, do everything we can to minimise inconvenience to the local community.
Our intention is to begin construction later this year and we envisage the new site will be fully operational and pumping drinking water to local homes by March 2025. We will of course work as quickly and safely as possible to complete the project ahead of schedule.
We have been planning the new works since 2019. Plans for the new treatment works were initially put forward in our Water Resources Management Plan 2019(opens in a new tab), which sets out how we will continue supplying drinking water to the area’s growing population.
Costs for the new water treatment works are included within our commitment to invest more than £433 million into the network between 2020 and 2025 and so has already been accounted for within customer bills.
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