Northumbrian Water has announced that it is investing £185 million on essential improvements in the North East’s water and wastewater network during 2019.

The water company said that tackling leakage, protecting homes from flooding and ensuring improvements to drinking water quality continue to be among top priorities together with ensuring resilient and reliable services for customers right across the 32,000km of sewer network and 17,000km of water pipes.

The next 12 months will see the roll out of the final stage of the group’s 2015 to 2020 £1.1 billion pound investment plan and a number of large scale projects across the whole of the region are planned, including:

• A £21 million pound project to construct two new water treatment works in Berwick and Wooler to provide more than 25,000 customers with a high-quality, reliable supply of water
• A £3 million project to clean and upgrade 9 km of pipe at 18 different locations across the North Tyneside, Gateshead and Newcastle areas due to complete in summer 2019
• £46 million of investment work will continue at Horsley water treatment works

Heidi Mottram, Northumbrian Water’s Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Providing a first class reliable service for our customers that is great value for money is our number one priority. We are investing millions of pounds in our region to make sure we can deliver this for our customers.

“Efficiency and value for money continue to be a major focus for us and we’re keeping bills as low as possible for our communities. Our household customers will only pay, on average, around £1.12 per day for their drinking water and sewerage services – one of the lowest in the country – and this is really important to us.”

She added that the company was “very aware that some people have difficulty managing the family budget” and that the affordability of services was always a concern. Pointing out that Northumbrian offered many ways to assist people through its SupportPLUS scheme, Heidi Mottram urged any customers who think they may experience difficulty to get in touch as soon as possible.