Anglian starts strategic mains scheme and Elsham direct procurement

Anglian Water has kicked off the search for a Competitively Appointed Provider to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a £100m water treatment works – one of the first projects to be constructed under Ofwat’s Direct Procurement for Customers arrangements.

The new works is in Elsham, north Lincolnshire, and the contract for the scheme will run for at least 25 years. Anglian Water is now looking for interested parties to get in touch for pre-market engagement, to gauge capability, interest and to support the development stage of the project. The formal contract notice for tenders is expected to be issued by April 2022. Construction is likely to begin in 2023, with the works fully operational by the end of 2025.

The Elsham works will need to be capable of supplying up to 31m litres of drinking water a day and will be critical in supplying water to Anglian’s new network of strategic water mains which will take treated drinking water from North Lincolnshire to the south and east of the region, where it is less readily available.

Last week, Anglian also broke ground on the first section of this water main, which will run for 24km between Lincoln and Ancaster. It is the inaugural scheme for Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA), which will in total create up to 500km of interconnecting pipelines, making it longer than HS2.

Anglian said: “This long-term project will be crucial in addressing the predicted future imbalance where demand for water greatly outstrips the available resources in the east of England. This is the most fundamental challenge Anglian Water faces in its region, due to the combined impact of a rapidly growing population, climate change and being located in the most water-scarce part of the UK.” Without taking this action, the East of England would face a water deficit of 30 million litres a day by 2025.