Work has started on South West Water’s new £60 million state-of-the-art water treatment works, which will serve Plymouth and the surrounding area.
Representatives from Bickleigh Parish Council, South Hams District Council, Plymouth City Council, Devon County Council and Dartmoor National Park Authority visited the construction site at Roborough, just north of Plymouth, to see the progress being made.
The new treatment works will be officially known as the Mayflower Water Treatment Works, following a vote among South West Water staff.
South West Water’s Managing Director Stephen Bird said:
We were delighted to show our visitors around the site, where the foundations for the main process building have now been dug.
“We were also able to unveil the works’ official name, which has echoes of pioneering, innovating and exploring new worlds whilst paying homage to Plymouth’s past, as well as linking in with the Mayflower 400 initiative leading up to 2020.”
The Mayflower Water Treatment Works will replace the outdated treatment works at Crownhill in Plymouth, which was built in the 1950s and is reaching the end of its useful life.
The new works will meet the needs of Plymouth’s growing population and provide a secure, high-quality drinking water supply for the wider Plymouth area for generations to come.
It will use cutting-edge treatment processes, designed and developed by leading Dutch water technology company PWN Technologies, and tested at a prototype facility at Crownhill from June 2013 until June 2015.
The new technology uses suspended ion exchange, inline coagulation and ceramic membrane microfiltration. This is the first time that this technology has been used in the UK.
Global design and consultancy firm Arcadis is the main design contractor, in partnership with consulting engineers Pell Frischmann. Together they will be responsible for all the design work outside of the key treatment process.
Infrastructure group Balfour Beatty is the main construction contractor, in partnership with Interserve, responsible for the construction of all infrastructure, buildings and pipelines for the new water treatment works.
The construction phase is scheduled to finish by end of March 2018. Mayflower will become operational in September 2018, with the existing Crownhill works retiring from service a few months later.
Around 150 people are expected to be employed during construction.
With the UK government demanding a 50% reduction in storm overflow spills by 2029, the era of reactive management is over. Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 July 2025, then environment secretary Steve Reed said, “This Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade.”
ERG, the leading supplier of odour control systems and industrial gas cleaning & thermal systems, has been awarded the coveted King’s Award for Enterprise.
Welsh Water’s new artificial intelligence-driven tool, ORAI, has been shortlisted for three categories at the prestigious British Data Awards 2026 – underscoring the company’s commitment to using cutting-edge technology to deliver better outcome for customers.
Barhale has completed work on two separate Rapid Action Taskforce Spills projects it is carrying out for Severn Trent.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.