Glencorse Water Treatment Works - Midlothian
Scottish Water is building a new water treatment works at Glencorse in Midlothian, as part of the Edinburgh Drinking Water Project; a strategic programme of capital investment to build a new water treatment works (WTW) and replace ageing mains and storage tanks providing water to Edinburgh and surrounding areas.
Our aim is to facilitate the city’s continued expansion and improve the quality of drinking water in Edinburgh. It will also allow us to provide 21st century water treatment facilities, to meet strict European guidelines on drinking water quality.
Latest Project News
Information on Road Closure - 3rd July 2009
An essential part of the Glencorse Project is the new water mains that will carry treated water from the treatment works to the existing water network. To allow this work to take place, a section of Bush Loan Road will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians for up to three weeks commencing Monday 27th of July. Diversions to the alternative route via the A703 will be well signposted.
Click here to see a map of the road closure (pdf).
Safety First at Glencorse - 1st July 2009
The Glencorse Project has recently been announced as a winner in this year’s Scottish Water Capital Programme Awards. These awards are presented annually to projects showing outstanding achievement in various categories. Glencorse has been awarded ‘Excellence in Health & Safety’ in recognition of the project teams ‘best practice’ approach to Health and Safety.
One contributing factor was that in 241,000 man hours we have had zero reportable accidents. Quite an achievement!
As well as this, our construction partner Black & Veatch recently received a prestigious Gold Award from the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). These awards acknowledge our dedication to having a safe working environment.
Pipeline Update - 12th June 2009
An important part of the project is the new pipelines that will carry treated water from Glencorse Water Treatment Works to the existing water supply networks in Edinburgh and Midlothian. We have now begun to position the large diameter pipes into the trenches. It will take 18 months to complete this part of the project and will involve 15km of new pipe going into the ground.
Click here to see more details of the pipeline route (pdf).
Update on Residents Visit - 5th June 2009 In April another ‘Meet The Team’ session was held for local residents at The Flotterstone Inn. This was a good opportunity to update our neighbours on the progress of the project and to listen to any concerns that they had. Click here to read a summary of the evening (pdf).
During the Meet The Team session we asked residents if they would be interested in a guided tour of the site; the answer was a resounding “Yes!”. The site visit took place on the 13th of May and was a great success. Residents were kitted-out in hard hats and fluorescent jackets and given a safety induction before observing the site from the viewing platforms. We will invite our neighbours to another site visit next year to allow them to see the progress of the project.
In Focus - 8th May 2009 Every Quarter we focus on a particular area of the project and explain it in more detail. This Quarter we are focussing on the Mobile Pipe Manufacturing Plant. As mentioned previosly on this page, the mobile production plant is a world first and a very interesting aspect of the project. Click here to find out more (pdf). .
Project Update - 10th April 2009 The site has now moved to summer working hours which commence at 7.30am. The progress on site is now accelerating with these extended hours and should allow us to finish on time. The construction of the concrete foundations and walls of the treatment building are now well under way and excavation work for the 90 million litre treated water storage tank has begun. Most of the material we are excavating is being stored temporarily in adjacent fields and will be returned to the site for backfilling around the new tanks and for final landscape screening. Some spoil also requires to be exported off the site and this will commence shortly.
Our mobile pipe manufacturing plant has been producing the large diameter pipes for two months and we now have a stock of pipes ready to go into the ground. The top soil along the pipeline route is currently being stripped. We have archaeologists monitoring this operation to ensure we are not disturbing anything of historical interest.
To see the latest photographs from the site click here.Pipeline Work Begins
The pipeline part of the project is about to commence. The pipelines will carry treated water from Glencorse to the existing water supply network in Edinburgh. Large diameter, treated water pipes, a waste water pipe and an emergency outfall pipe are to be built. These will all be laid underground by digging a trench, laying the pipes and covering them back over. Although most of the route is through farmland, a number of roads, watercourses, tree belts and hedges will also be crossed.
Some of the working areas along the pipeline route are in the process of being fenced and field drainage surveys have also commenced in sections. Various subcontractors will be delivering sections of work on behalf of Black & Veatch and Scottish Water.
The entire pipeline will take about 18 months to build. Construction work will move along the route and therefore will not stay in any one place for long. Construction vehicles building the pipelines will mainly use the pipeline route itself to transport pipes and equipment to help reduce the need for using local roads.
Project Update
The local pipework diversions and associated roadworks are now complete and work at the site is now gathering pace. The concrete works to the treatment building are underway and the first of 50,000 cubic metres of concrete – enough to fill 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools - is now in the ground. Within the concrete there will be around 6,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement. A new addition to the site is the first of two huge temporary tower cranes, which will lift and manoeuvre all the materials and equipment required to build the water treatment works into place. It has been a busy few weeks for the project. One of the latest developments is that the mobile pipe production plant is now up and running. This mobile pipe production factory is a world first and will help to reduce lorry journeys by up to 75 percent.
For further details on the mobile pipe production plant view our Latest Progress Page.
