Utility firm;s £64m development

From the archive, first published Friday 29th Dec 2006.

A village famous for being the former set of soap opera Emmerdale is soon to be home to a new production.

Yorkshire Water is to carry out a £64m water treatment development in Esholt, with the new facility set to serve 330,000 people in Bradford and North Leeds.

The Bradford-based utility company is completely re-building its waste water treatment works on a ten-hectare site on the edge of the village near Shipley.

It will have the capacity to treat 3,241 litres of sewage per second and is part of preparations for the introduction of new EU regulations in 2010.

Yorkshire Water has drawn up a ten-point plan which it has presented to Environment Minister Ian Pearson, calling for new measures to help the UK meet European standards for water management.

Work at the former sludge lagoon is already underway with five thousand vibro stone columns having been drilled into the ground.

In March another 600 vibro stone columns and a similar number of vibro concrete columns will be installed. The work will improve ground conditions for construction of the reinforced concrete tank which will be 204 metres by 80 metres.

Senior engineer David Preece, who works for specialists Pennine, said: "Land remediation had to be carried out before any of the ground improvement work could begin. Varying ground levels also meant that some parts of the site had to be reduced in height by six metres, while others had to be raised by a metre."

Pennine is playing a £30,000 cameo role in the development and is preparing the ground for construction of a new plant to help bring the quality of treated waste water effluent up to Freshwater Fish Directive standards. The new project caps off a successful year for the utility firm.

Earlier this month it was named Utility Company of the Year for the third year running and its parent company, Kelda, cited the firm as a major contributor to its solid interim profit results, posted in November.