Severn Trent to invest over £680 million on storm overflows in Birmingham and the Black Country
Severn Trent has announced it will invest over £680 million on its storm overflows, improving river health across Birmingham and the Black Country.
The water company will make the investment over a 25-year period up to 2050, as part of its plans to reduce spills from storm overflows across the county.
A total of 411 storm overflows across Birmingham and the Black Country will undergo investment – which could range from increasing the capacity of its storage tanks to introducing green nature-based solutions. The company is also investing to ensure rivers are monitored closer than ever before with 100% of its storm overflows with monitors – and the company is now analysing around 300m pieces of data a year helping to prioritise investment.
The investment for Birmingham and the Black Country forms part of a wider £4.4bn injection into 2,472 storm overflows across the Severn Trent region, as part of the water company’s Storm Overflow Action Plan (SOAP).
The aim is to reduce the number of spills into water courses across the county, ensuring that by 2040 no overflow will spill more than 10 times in an average year in high priority areas, and in all areas by 2045, five years ahead of Government targets.
Since launching its Get River Positive, Severn Trent has delivered strong results and committed to significant investment in Birmingham and the Black Country, including;
As schemes progress more detail will be shared on what action is planned for every storm overflow in every waterbody. A live ‘Event Duration Monitor’ map is due to be launched later this year, which will be a great tool for people to see what investment plans are taking place on all storm overflows across the region.
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