South East Water is about to start a major £4.3 million upgrade of its water treatment works at Kingston near Canterbury, which currently processes 7.3 million litres of water every day.

The Kingston WTW site currently treats water for 48,000 residents. The company plans to build new ultra violet disinfection and filtration plants to reduce cloudiness and improve water quality as well as upgrade its existing boreholes which collect ground water.

Once complete, as well as improved tap water quality, the site will also be able to treat more water – up to 10 million litres a day.

Joe Yip, South East Water Delivery Manager, said:

“The site at Kingston currently supplies drinking water to about 48,000 residents and businesses in the Canterbury and Ashford areas.”

“It takes water as little as two hours to pass through a water treatment works like Kingston, which means customers in the area are drinking water that just a few hours before, was deep underground in an aquifer.”

Building work is due to begin on 16 May with construction expected to complete in April 2017.