£200m United Utilities waste treatment plant for Wellington Dock approved
A NEW £200m waste treatment plant will be built on the banks of the River Mersey to continue improving its water quality.
United Utilities was yesterday given planning permission for the new complex in Liverpool’s northern docklands.
The scheme involves draining Wellington Dock and partially reclaiming it to create a huge plant capable of handling 11,000 litres of wastewater a second – the equivalent of re-fuelling the average family car 200 times every second.
As part of the new improvements, sections of Sandon Dock will also be upgraded and the existing outfall will be extended into the River Mersey resulting in dispersing treated waste water even further into the estuary to meet new EU standards.
The new plant must be built by 2016 after United Utilities was prosecuted by the Environment Agency for polluting the Mersey.
Sarah Jakubiak of United Utilities said Wellington Dock was the only available site for the development.
It falls within the buffer zone for the World Heritage Site (WHS), and English Heritage had expressed concerns about the scheme. However, Ms Jakubiak said English Heritage had withdrawn their objections after United Utilities had presented their plans to a recent monitoring mission to the WHS by Unesco.
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Liverpool council said yesterday that it was prepared to approve the plans for the plant because of the exceptional circumstances and because it was desperately needed. |
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