£2m to improve Much Wenlock brook

Severn Trent will spend the money to improve the Farley Brook.

The company will be working to improve the water treatment facility in the town, which will hopefully lead to a cleaner river and prevention of algal blooms that could damage the brook in the future.

Severn Trent engineer, Jessica Alce, said: “The quality of the environment local to our sites is incredibly important to us and we want to protect it as much as possible.

"We’re investing over £2million in our site at Much Wenlock to make sure we meet new phosphorus targets set by the water framework directive.

“Phosphorus is essential for plant life, but when there’s too much of it in water, it can lead to more floating plants, algae, and the formation of dense mats of larger floating plants such as water hyacinths, which make swimming and boating less attractive.

"When these plants die they decompose and can produce offensive smells. The decomposition also uses up oxygen in the water, leading to conditions that kill fish and invertebrates."

Severn Trent’s huge investment in Much Wenlock will upgrade the water treatment site, and add new processes that remove phosphorus from the water that enters Farley Brook.

Jessica adds: “We’ll be starting work later in April and we expect everything to be finished early next year.

"Local people and visitors to the area may see more large vehicles travelling through the town and there may be some traffic management.

"We’ll shortly be holding a drop in session for people to come and talk to us about these plans so we can work out how to do the job with the minimum disruption to the town.

"When work begins we’ll do all we can to help minimise the impact and we’d like to ask the local community for their patience until the treatment works is fully upgraded.

"The work won’t go on for long, but the benefits will be there for generations.”