South Staffs Water has been awarded a prestigious industry award in recognition of its successful partnership working on a multi-million pound investment scheme.

The project to install a new ultra-violet (UV) water treatment facility at the water company’s Seedy Mill Treatment Works near Lichfield received the ‘Constellation Award for Collaborative Work with a Supplier’ at the recent Utility Week Star Awards for 2017.

Completed earlier this year in partnership with Integrated Water Services (IWS) and the UV technology supplier atg UV Technology (atg UV), the scheme is one of the largest UV water treatment plants in the UK.

Judges commented on the ‘deep level interpretation in a highly ambitious project’ that would ordinarily take around two and a half years but was completed in just ten months owing to the strong working relationships.

Pete Aspley, wholesale service delivery directory for South Staffs Water, said: “The project has converted two underground wet contact tanks into dry chambers to house a new state of the art facility with more than 120 valves and four UV reactors, each containing 30 quartz tubes.

“We had to work within considerable technical constraints to a very demanding timetable but used these challenges as an opportunity to be innovative and flexible in our approach, including how we work with our supply chain.

“The result meant water supply to customers was not interrupted during construction and we delivered on all targets. We’re extremely proud of our achievement and of being recognised with this award.”

The Seedy Mill project is part of the company’s commitment in its current five year business plan to invest over £190m in assets that as well as water treatment works; includes over 6,000km of pipes, boreholes reservoirs and pumping stations.

About Seedy Mill Treament Works

• Water is taken from the Blithfield Reservoir (near Lichfield) and pumped to the nearby Seedy Mill Treatment Works. Once cleaned and treated it is then pumped into the network which includes storage reservoirs and then released into the local supply as needed.
• The works can treat and pump up to 26 million gallons of water per day and serves a population of 200,000 people in the South Staffs Water area of supply including Burton, Tamworth and Cannock

6 July 2017