Our key projects in Berkshire

• Developing new sources of water

  • We plan to develop new underground water sources to boost supplies in the Swindon and Oxfordshire area by 28 million litres per day.
    
    This will help to reduce the predicted gap between supply and demand for water.

• Ensuring high drinking water quality

  • We will install an additional stage of water treatment at one of our works to better protect drinking water supplies from micro-organisms that are occasionally found in water sources. This will benefit parts of north Reading, including Playhatch, Sonning and parts of Caversham.
    
    We believe that untreated water may be at risk of pollution from agricultural run-off, so we will install an additional stage of treatment to ensure that drinking water remains unaffected. This will benefit parts of Berkshire and South Oxfordshire, including Pangbourne and its surrounding area.
    
    We plan to work with farmers, manufacturers and others to protect sources of drinking water from a widely used agricultural chemical. This project will benefit parts of Reading and Wokingham.

• Expanding our drainage network

  • We will expand our sewer network and treatment capacity to meet the demands of planned new development across our region. This will allow more than 200,000 new properties to connect to our sewer system between 2010 and 2015.

• Expanding our water network

  • We will increase our capacity to store water, and our ability to transfer it from source to tap. This is both to accommodate growth in demand, and to make us better able to deal with unexpected interruptions to supplies.

• Promoting water efficiency & metering

  • We will begin a programme to increase the proportion of domestic properties with meters from 28 per cent to 37 per cent by 2015. This is the fairest way to pay and encourages careful use of water, as well as giving us useful information on patterns of water usage.
    
    We will initially focus most of our work in London, Swindon and Oxfordshire, where there is the greatest potential shortfall between local water needs and the volume we can supply. Where possible, we will fit meters at the same time as we replace water mains, to reduce costs and minimise disruption to customers.
    
    We will provide all newly-metered customers with advice and assistance to help them control their water usage and bills.
    
    The results of a public inquiry into our revised draft Water Resources Management Plan will potentially affect our proposals.
    
    Our strategy is to ensure 80 per cent of homes are metered by 2025. We will review our plans once we have completed analysis of the likely future effects of climate change, based on recently published forecasts.

• Keeping our sites safe

  • We plan to provide better flood protection and make other improvements to water treatment works and pumping stations in Berkshire. This will ensure we can protect the quality of drinking water for more than 200,000 customers in the event of a flood.
    
    We also plan to increase our capability to provide alternative drinking water in the event of a widescale interruption to the water supply.

• Protecting & improving streams and rivers

  • We plan to reduce the volume of groundwater we take from sources at Speen so as to help protect the Kennet and Lambourne floodplain Special Area of Conservation, and to construct two new boreholes that would provide water to maintain levels in the Thatcham Reedbeds Site of Special Scientific Interest & Special Area of Conservation in the event of a severe drought.
    
    We plan to enhance the treatment of the water we discharge from our Lower Basildon, Wickham and Yattendon sewage treatment works into underground aquifers, in line with new European legislation. This will help maintain levels of groundwater, and improve its quality.
    
    We also plan to make improvements to East Shefford, Hampstead Norreys and Stratfield Mortimer sewage works that will ensure our sewage treatment meets the needs of the river environment as the local population increases.
    
    The Environment Agency expects this will help protect 16.1km of the River Lambourn, 11.9km of the River Pang and 10.5km of Foudry Brook. We will also expand all three works to ensure they have the capacity to treat their areas' sewage until at least 2021.
    
    In a separate project, we plan to investigate the potential presence in our discharge of specific trace substances that are not completely removed by the sewage treatment process. This will take place at: Ascot sewage works, which discharges treated water into Bull Brook Maidenhead sewage works, which discharges treated water into Maidenhead Ditch White Waltham sewage works, which discharges treated water into Heywood Stream Chieveley sewage works, which discharges treated water into the River Winterbourne Kintbury sewage works, which discharges treated water into the Kennet & Avon Canal Reading sewage works, which discharges treated water into Foudry Brook Pangbourne sewage works, which discharges treated water into the River Sul Slough sewage works, which discharges treated water into Roundmoor Ditch Burghfield sewage works, which discharges treated water into Clay Hill Brook Easthampstead Park sewage works, which discharges treated water into Emm Brook Wokingham sewage works, which discharges treated water into Ashridge Stream
    
    We have worked hard to make sure that our sewage works meet strict environmental guidelines, and over the last two years have achieved close to 100 per cent compliance with treatment standards, our best ever performance.
    
    We plan to improve and refurbish our Mogden sewage works to help us maintain our current high levels of performance through to 2015 and beyond. This will include increasing the capacity of the site in order to meet new treatment standards, allow for future population growth and reduce the quantity of discharges of untreated storm sewage to the tidal River Thames.
    
    Read more about our London Tideway Improvements programme
    
    Regulations have been revised to further limit the use of treated liquid sewage sludge on agricultural land during certain times of the year, in order to reduce nitrogen losses to water and so limit nitrate pollution. Sludge is the solid remains after water has been removed through the sewage treatment process.
    
    To comply with these regulations, we intend to make improvements to our Bracknell works to turn liquid sludge into a solid cake. This is an equally effective fertiliser that reduces the risk of nitrate pollution. We also propose to transport liquid sludge from Ascot to our treatment site in nearby Reading.

• Protecting homes & businesses from flooding

  • We are proposing to protect homes and businesses at greatest risk of floods from our sewers. We will prioritise projects by taking into account the severity and frequency of flooding, and the cost per property of improvements. We will make improvements to our sewer network in Berkshire to reduce the risk of sewer flooding to 50 properties that have flooded previously.
    
    In addition, we expect to make further improvements across our region to protect more than 600 properties outside the capital that are flooded for the first time. We also predict that we will tackle flooding at around 400 properties across our region where we are provided with new information about previous flooding incidents of which we are currently unaware.
    
    In addition to our normal work to keep our sewers running freely, we plan to investigate and resolve repeated sewer blockages in Reading and Caversham. Blockages can prevent the sewer system from working properly and can even lead to flooding and pollution.

• Reducing leakage from our pipes

  • We will continue our major programme of work finding and fixing leaky pipes. We fix around 70-80,000 leaks a year (roughly one every eight and a half minutes) and we plan to maintain this level of work between 2010 and 2015.

• Reducing odour from our sewage works

  • We plan to make improvements to our Slough treament works in order to reduce odour for about 500 neighbouring properties.

• Reducing our carbon footprint

  • We plan to install a hydro-electric turbine on the River Kennet in Berkshire to generate renewable energy for our sites.
    
    At our Slough treatment works we currently use sewage gas in 'combined heat and power' units, producing renewable electricity and heat for use on the site. This reduces our overall energy consumption and our carbon footprint. We plan to improve the efficiency of our existing combined heat and power installation.
    
    This is part of our broader plan to reduce our carbon footprint by 20 per cent by 2015.

• Saving water

  • We will help customers to save water and reduce their bills by offering water efficiency packs to households where we are fitting water meters. Vulnerable customers will be entitled to professional audits from plumbers, who will install water-efficient devices.
    
    We will also work with local authorities, housing associations and developers to promote water efficiency in existing and new homes. We will continue to promote water efficiency through education, partnerships, and research projects across our clean water supply region.

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