26 June 2012

Costain's work to install 1km of temporary pipeline and ancillaries to help recover water levels at Draycote Reservoir in Warwickshire, in March, has contributed to an almost 20% increase in the reservoir's volume since January 2012.

The pipeline will be an all year round source of water into Draycote and to the end of May 2012, it had contributed over 2% of the Reservoir capacity, some 480Ml.

The pipeline was installed to maximise abstraction consents and improve raw water storage at a time when depleted water levels are creating drought conditions in many parts of the country. The pipeline connects to an existing pump that normally pumps water to Leamington Spa, and now has the added facility of diverting water from the River Leam up to Draycote some nine miles away.

Severn Trent's team at Draycote recognised a further opportunity to increase water levels and, following Central Strategy Team negotiations with the Environment Agency (EA), secured consent to pump from Eathorpe (upstream of Leamington on the River Leam) during flood warning periods and outside Severn Trent's regular pumping season. This move had the positive knock-on effect of helping the EA to reduce the risk of flooding further downstream. With this activity alone, the team has been able to abstract 658ml of water over a very short period of time, which equates to approximately 25 days worth of production from the Draycote works.

The local Severn Trent team has also managed to increase production from the River Avon sources into Draycote.

Severn Trent has also pumped a great volume of Treated Water from the distribution system into the Reservoir, by utilising capacity from other areas within the Company, via the Treated Water Grid System.

Severn Trents Area Manager, Mick Carvell, said: “We have worked hard with the EA, our internal and Supply Chain partners and I'm pleased to see the positive effect of improving relationships and cooperation between us all. We are now in a much stronger position at Draycote to meet our commitment to the customer of 'Always on and good to drink', for the up and coming summer demand period.”

Ends