Southern Water Wastewater Scheme In Kent Reaches Successful Completion

Black & Veatch Meets Challenging 45-Day Completion Target for 4Delivery

Redhill, UK — The Ashford Consent Compliance Scheme is the first of three projects at Southern Water's Ashford Wastewater Treatment Works to reach completion according to Black & Veatch, a leading engineering, consulting and construction company.

Black & Veatch constructed and commissioned the project for client 4Delivery, a Special Purpose Vehicle set up by suppliers to Southern Water to assist in the delivery of Southern Water's current capital programme.

Forming a part of 4Delivery's East Kent Sludge Framework, the Ashford Consent Compliance Scheme is quality driven and produces effluent to a higher standard, thereby improving the overall quality of the water in the Great Stour River. The scheme achieved operational takeover on 4th February 2008 and overall completion within a 45-day deadline set by the client.

Commenting on the scheme, Martin Charlton, Director for Black & Veatch Water Europe's Southern Project Centre, said: "The East Kent Sludge Framework is the combination of projects at Ashford, Allington and Aylesford. It is a great achievement to obtain completion of one of the larger and key schemes, Ashford Consent Compliance. This scheme has been very challenging with aggressive timescales. Despite these challenges, the Black & Veatch team has completed this project to the agreed timescale and developed innovative and sustainable solutions to construction and commissioning issues."

Geoff Joy, Southern Water's Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) Section Leader at Ashford, remarked, "The whole project was conducted in a very professional manner with Black & Veatch providing continuous support and resolutions to problems as they arose. Teamwork between Southern Water, 4D and Black & Veatch was paramount to the successful outcome of this project with as little interruption to the operations on site as possible."

Greg Mullett, Project Manager for 4D, said: "The Ashford Project team won 4D Team of The Month for November 2007 for successfully carrying out work to achieve consent. The team worked incredibly hard to secure the performance of the plant when the consent for ammonia had to be reduced significantly. This was an excellent example of teamwork between Southern Water Operations, 4Delivery and Black & Veatch. Performance of the plant since takeover has been excellent."

SOURCE: Black & Veatch