by Adam Williams

Work on a £12m wastewater project that will help protect Canterbury from flood waters remains on schedule, despite the recent bout of bad weather.

The Southern Water scheme includes the construction of an underground storm water storage tank on the former Kingsmead coach park and an underground pumping station in Vauxhall Road.

Work began in September and despite the heavy snowfall and having to share space with the Marlowe Theatre Arena, the project should be completed to the late summer deadline.

Gary Sayers, senior project engineer for Southern Water, explained that the work is vital to build more capacity into the city’s sewerage network.

He said: "At times of heavy rain, the new storage tank will collect 900,000 litres of storm water. Once the bad weather has passed, this will be pumped back into the wastewater system for cleaning at Canterbury Wastewater Treatment Works before returning to the Great Stour River."

Southern Water says disruption to traffic and water supplies will be kept to a minimum because the new installations are mainly underground.

It says that when complete, all that will be visible, apart from security fencing, will be small green kiosks to house the control systems and electrical supplies, together with new manhole covers for the underground tank in Kingsmead Road.

Mr Sayers said: "We’re working in areas that aren’t going to directly affect the public.

"We’ve also been working very closely with the city council to ensure that all the Marlowe panto performances went ahead without any disruption from ourselves."

The work is being carried out by Southern Water’s contractor 4Delivery (4D) and the scheme forms part of the company’s five-year environmental improvement programme.

awilliams@thekmgroup.co.uk