Half a million pounds is being spent on the modernisation of two County Durham water pumping stations.

Northumbrian Water is to upgrade Coxhoe and Copley Pumping Stations, which serve homes in the Quarrington Hill and Woodlands areas.

The work at Coxhoe, which starts next week and will take up to three months to complete, will involve replacing existing pumps with more efficient ones. An identical scheme will begin at the Copley site in June 2011 for two months.

Iain Burn, project manager for the scheme, said:

“Northumbrian Water is committed to providing a high quality of service to its customers throughout the region and this work is part of our £1.2 billion investment between 2010 and 2015 to upgrade our vast water and sewerage networks.

“We are constantly looking at more effective ways to move water around the network and our investment at Coxhoe and Copley Pumping Stations will increase the efficiency of both plants.”

Montgomery Watson Harza Constructors are the contractors for the scheme.