Why is this expansion needed?
Saltford water recycling centre treats sewage and wastewater from Bath and the surrounding area before it is safely returned to the environment.
The current site, shown on maps from 1914, was expanded in the 1960s but, apart from two large storm tanks and four filter beds installed in the early 2000s, has largely remained unaltered in the years since.
With the local population projected to expand in future years, further development is now necessary to ensure the enhanced regulations to improve river water quality will be met.
The Saltford centre also forms part of Wessex Water’s nutrient removal programme within the Bristol Avon Catchment.
One of 66 water recycling centres within that catchment, Saltford currently contributes between seven and 12 per cent of the total catchment removal of nutrients entering local watercourses, preventing blue green algae and endangering aquatic life.
These facilities are being extended as the site expands.
What will this expansion look like?
By boosting the capacity of the water recycling centre, Wessex Water will be able to treat more than 800 litres of wastewater per second – around a 40 per cent increase on current flows – to help meet increasing demands.
Based to the west of the existing water recycling centre site, these new treatment processes will include new flow measurement and screening equipment, grit and phosphorous removal facilities, primary and final settlement tanks and an activated sludge plant.
These will be built with associated pumping stations and electrical supply and control infrastructure.
The project is expected to take two years to complete and cost an estimated £34 million.
What about the impact on the local environment?
Wessex Water has worked closely with Bath & North East Somerset Council on developing measures to mitigate the landscape and visual impact of this scheme as a requirement of planning permission being granted, with the centre sitting within the green belt and in view of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
The planning application determined that the scheme will provide a biodiversity net gain of more than 10 per cent.
Part of this is the ‘Ecological Wetland Scrape’, which has been designed to provide a habitat for amphibians, invertebrates, mammals and wetland birds.
Centred on three ponds designed to give seasonally wet areas, extended undulations mimic the ‘ridge and furrow’ of a natural, ancient floodplain meadow, allowing native plants - and the animals that rely on them - to naturally establish.
Building a bridge
Our new £9 million access bridge, helping to ease traffic travelling through narrow lanes locally and allowing staff to get to and from the centre and A431 road, was completed in 2024.
An adjacent footway crossing also now links the A431 on the east of the River Avon to the local public right of way network and the River Avon Trail on the west, providing a new pedestrian link between the villages of Bitton and Saltford.
After building supporting abutments, wingwalls and embankments in the summer, our team successfully launched and landed the bridge into place across the River Avon during autumn 2023.
Drainage and kerbing were added before the new access road started taking construction traffic to and from construction of the water recycling centre extension from February 2024.
The new footway was officially opened by members of the parish council of Saltford and Bitton, as well as Wessex Water chief executive Colin Skellett, in September 2024.
Approximately 5,000 trees and shrubs were planted and ground reinstated around the bridge.
Progress
- February 2024: Construction traffic being use of new access bridge.
- September 2024: Opening of pedestrian footway adjacent to access bridge.
- To September 2025: Civil construction of main structures at expansion, including piling, then phased handover of structures for mechanical & electrical installation.
- August 2024 – December 2025: Mechanical and electrical installation.
- October 2024 – May 2026: Structure and plant testing.
- January – May 2026: Commissioning, reliability and performance testing.
- August – October 2025: Final landscaping and seeding.
- January – March 2026: Site to be cleared.