Northumbrian Water is investing £3 million to upgrade of two County Durham sewage treatment works.

Northumbrian Water is to modernise New Moors sewage treatment works, which is located south-east of Evenwood, West Auckland, and Esh Winng sewage treatment works.

The work at both sites is to improve the quality of the water discharged to the environment at the end of the waste water treatment process and to enable growth within the local areas.

Work at the Esh Winning site began in July and will be finished early April 2015. Work at the New Moors site will begin early September and take up to seven months to complete.

New Moors STW currently treats more than 110,000 litres of waste water per day and serves a population of more than 820 in South Evenwood, Evengwood Gate and surrounding areas.

After the scheme is complete the works will be capable of treating more than 260,000 litres of waste water per day and will serve a population of more than 920.

Esh Winning STW, which is a much larger site, currently treats more than 1.3 million litres of waste water per day and serves a population of more than 4,600 in the village of Esh Winning, Cornsay Colliery, Water Houses, Quebec and the surrounding areas.

On completion of the refurbishment work, the works will be capable of treating more than 1.4 million liltres of waste water per day and will serve a population of 4,725.

The water quality of Hummer Beck, Evenwood Gate, and Priest Burn, Esh Winning, will also be improved as a result of this work.

Mike Foster, Northumbrian Water’s project manager for the two schemes, commented:

“Both treatment works will remain fully operational while we upgrade each site and there won’t be any impact on the waste water service we provide to customers as a result of this work.”

“Each of the schemes is costing £1.5 million and will involve renewing various assets, including screens, filters, tanks and pumping stations, which will improve the performance, efficiency and capability of the sites”