New £3.5m Oswestry reservoir in water firm's plans

The water firm's plans include building a reservoir to store treated water for Oswestry. The four million litre reservoir will be created on the site of the town's much smaller, low level reservoir on Mount Road.

It will cost £3.5 million and a planning application has now been submitted to Shropshire Council.

If it gets the go-ahead, work on site is expected to start early next year.

David Essex from Severn Trent said a pumping station would be build to take water to the high level areas of the town.

Once in place and working, the water company would then abandon the 70-year-old high level reservoir.

"A new reservoir will provide greater security of supply, improved water quality and allow lower chlorine levels," he said.

He said six water mains renewal projects were due to take place in the next 18 months in the rural areas. These include work in the Pentre and St Martins, Selatynn and Valeswood areas.

Work already completed in the five-year programme running from 2010-2015 includes renewing water mains in the town centre, flood alleviation in Victoria Fields and a new sewerage scheme for the Guildhall.

Still to come is a plan to supply Oswestry with water from boreholes south of Shrewsbury. This would reducing the amount of water coming in from the unpopular Shelton waterworks to just 10 per cent.

This £4.1 million scheme is due to be carried out next year.

Mr Essex said Severn Trent was currently consulting on its next business plan for the area.

"We are developing our plans for 2015-2020 and beyond.

"We need to make some choices about what we do in the future such as how we ensure we have enough water to meet demand over the next 25 years, how we protect our infrastrucutre against the impact of climate change and how we keep bills affordable in tough economic times."

He said customers could find out more and have their say on the plans at the Severn Trent website, www.severntrent.com/makingtherightchoices