Project Background and Scope

The treatment plant itself was built during the 1960s and completed in the early 1970s and processes 560 million litres of water each day.

Strategically and economically, this is arguably the most important source of London’s water, serving areas from the Financial district in the East to the Government district in the Centre. 

A potential challenge to capacity of the supply from Coppermills was identified by Thames Water in that effective capacity was potentially reduced during periods of Algal bloom due to the increased work load this placed on the existing 24 Rapid Gravity Filters, which could restrict output to 380MLD limiting headroom in the London Supply Demand balance.

As a solution, it was decided to build an additional 12 Rapid Gravity Filters to augment the existing infrastructural capacity on site.

New works required which were to provide an additional 200MLD Rapid Gravity Filter process in a fully automated process system which was to be integrated so as to fully function in tandem with or independently of, current site Rapid Gravity Filters.

Filters had to be capable of operating at 8 million litres per hour with one filter offline for backwashing.

The final project scope agreed was to provide a new High Lift Pumping, provide 300m3 additional surge capacity and build 12 new Rapid Gravity Filters with a volume of 95m2 each on the North Western part of the site.