United Utilties announce £40m. investment in Burnley and Hyndburn's wastewater treament plants to improve River Calder

The investment is part of a £230m. programme of environmental investment which is under way across the North West to improve around 184km of the region’s rivers by 2025.

United Utilities has today announced the locations where it will be investing in the region’s wastewater systems to make them more resilient to heavy rainfall.

In total, the investment programme will reduce sewer spills into the environment by more than 10 million tonnes a year - the equivalent of 4,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

· £40m at Burnley and Hyndburn: Burnley and Hyndburn wastewater treatment plants will be upgraded so that they can treat greater volumes during heavy rainfall, and the sewer network at Pendle and Burnley will be upgraded to provide greater storage capacity. This will improve 23km of Pendle Water and the River Calder

The investment is announced on the day that United Utilities has retained the top 4-star rating for its environmental performance in 2021.

Jo Harrison, Director of Environmental Planning and Innovation at United Utilities, said: “At United Utilities, our purpose is very clear – we don’t just supply water, we also want to make the North West greener, healthier and stronger. We work very hard to maintain a high level of environmental performance and we’re pleased that for the second year running we have been awarded the top 4-star rating by the Environment Agency.

“We know there is always more to do, and playing our part to improve the health of the region’s rivers is very important to our customers. This is already well underway and, by 2025, we will have invested £230m improving 184km of waterways and we will have developed our plans to progressively reduce the impact of storm overflows in the coming years.”

The river improvement programme is just part of United Utilities investment commitments across the North West between 2020 and 2025. This will inject £10.5 billion into the regional economy and support one in every 100 jobs across the North West.