Engineers at United Utilities are working round the clock to save a sick wastewater treatment works in High Peak.

The plant at Whaley Bridge has been struggling to treat the community’s wastewater since last week when it was damaged by unusually high strength effluent arriving at the plant.

Local residents have complained about the resulting bad smells which have been more noticeable during the warm weather.

 Area manager David Frain explained:

“Like all our sewage works, the Whaley Bridge plant uses bugs and bacteria to treat the waste.  It’s a living process, and it can be killed if waste that is toxic or too strong is discharged into the sewers. That’s why there are strict regulations about what businesses can flush away.”

 “The works is really sick at the moment and we are working hard to help it recover as quickly as possible. In essence, we need to repopulate the treatment process using healthy bugs from another treatment plant. Unfortunately, until the process recovers there are likely to be more smells than usual and we do apologise to all our neighbours about this.”

 The water company says this is the second time this summer that the treatment plant has been damaged in this way. United Utilities is working with the Environment Agency to investigate exactly where potentially unauthorised waste came from and said it will take the necessary action.

 For the time being a temporary odour control rig has been brought to the site to help neutralise the smells using a masking spray. In the longer term, there are plans for a more permanent odour control system to be installed at the works.