Anglian Water plans £8 million upgrade for Spalding Water Recycling Centre with current facility unable to cater for growing town
A major £8 million upgrade is due for Spalding’s sewage works to help cater for the town’s growth — but developers won’t be asked to foot the bill.
Anglian Water is looking at a project to improve its Spalding Water Recycling Centre in West Marsh Road, which cannot cope with extra demand from housing planned nearby.
The project is in the utility firm’s 2025-30 work programme. An exact timeframe for the project is not known as the work could be knocked back if other more urgent works are prioritised — but it is expected to be finished in the next five years.
An Anglian Water spokesman said: “Our region is one of the fastest growing in the country, and we’re about to start work on our largest ever, £11 billion investment programme to support this growth.
“In Spalding, we’ve proposed an £8 million scheme to upgrade our water recycling centre as the local area grows. This would include new sewage treatment equipment and monitoring technology, to ensure we can continue to prevent flooding and protect the local environment.”
The lack of capacity at the site was revealed in a submission by Anglian Water as part of plans for a 69-bed extra care housing scheme off Roman Bank in Spalding.
Anglian Water bosses had said that it cannot cater with the extra foul drainage caused by the plans but said it was powerless to object to them and would have to find a solution if the scheme, from Sea Island Developments, is built.
Given that this is not the only new development in the town, it prompted questions about the urgent need for investment on the sewage works.
Anglian Water is not actually a ‘statutory consultee’ when it comes to planning applications — and cannot object to developments, whether it is has the capacity in its foul sewers or not.
This ‘automatic right’ is only the case in England — and is something that the utility firm wants to change. Instead, it’s understood that Anglian Water would prefer a ‘conditional’ system where the drainage and sewage systems are taken into account when weighing up planning applications.
