Wave of Investments to Drain the Rain and Enhance the Environment

Work on the first wave of projects in Scottish Water’s £500million commitment to provide peace of mind to customers and real benefits for the environment is underway.

As well as increasing monitoring, the publicly owned utility’s Improving Urban Waters programme will help improve water quality, reduce sewer-related debris and minimise spills from the sewer network through targeted infrastructure investments.

More than 100 projects have been developed and designed with XX due to be delivered before 20XX.

XXXXXX said: “Scotland’s water quality is at its highest level for over 15 years with 87% of waterbodies now achieving at least ‘good’ condition.

“We know our sewer network will continue to come under increasing pressure from the combination of climate change and people flushing inappropriate items down the toilet.

“That is why we have targeted this extra investment specifically in locations where every pound that is spent will deliver real benefits to communities and the environment.”

The project phase of the programme has identified priority storm overflows for improvement or replacement for water quality or aesthetic – sewer related debris – reasons.

“Our water quality speaks for itself and vindicates our strategic approach to investment, which has focused on where best to spend customers money in a way that will improve the water environment”

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Under the banner ‘Draining the Rain, Enhancing the Environment’ each project will make significant inroads to boosting resilience in the sewer network, minimising spills and preventing sewer relating debris entering the water environment.

One of the first sewer network upgrade projects under the programme has already been completed with the installation of a new screened storm overflow near Lord Ancrum Woods in Edinburgh.

Another four similar projects are underway in Stewarton in East Ayrshire which is part of a £16.5million investment to alleviate flooding in the town.

XXXX said: “We are committed to doing everything in our power to protect the natural beauty of Scotland’s waters – including investing hundreds of millions of pounds on storm overflows alone, and billions of pounds more on infrastructure.

“Our water quality speaks for itself and vindicates our strategic approach to investment, which has focused on where best to spend customers money in a way that will improve the water environment, rather than investing in monitoring everything.”

Overflows are an essential and critical component in the sewer network, protecting homes and businesses from flooding during periods of heavy rain.

When spills occur, the overflows are operating as they are designed to – to stop the system backing up. The waste water is heavily diluted by rainstorms – toilet water makes up less than 1% of the water in the system - which is then further diluted in the environment.

Scottish Water took a strategic approach to monitoring overflows rather than the blanket 100% coverage adopted in the rest of the UK. This allows a dedicated team to proactively focus investment on prevention of flooding and pollution incidents. Scotland’s overall water quality reflects the success of this approach.

The near real-time data is now easily available on the new interactive map Overflow Map providing information on when an overflow is operating and where recent activity has occurred.

Last year Scottish Water delivered on a commitment to install 1000 additional monitors, and is on target to install a further 700 this year.