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A £5 million project to drastically reduce sewage spills into the River Mersey from a storm overflow in Eastham has reached the halfway stage.
As reported by Birkenhead News, United Utilities is building a 500m³ underground stormwater storage tank on council-owned land off Mayfield Drive, near the junction with Ferry Road.
The work is intended to tackle the Mayfield pumping station combined sewer overflow. This has been activated very frequently during heavy rainfall.
Increased storage space means the sewer network around the area will cope better during storms and heavy rainfall, which will decrease the need for the overflow to operate when the system reaches capacity.
United Utilities estimates that the number of spills will fall to less than 10 each year once the project is complete.
A new wastewater sewer screen is due to be delivered and installed in the coming weeks. Completion is scheduled for around March 2027, after which the surrounding land will be transformed into a community orchard for residents.
Steve Kenyon, County Business Lead for Wastewater in Merseyside at United Utilities, said: "This investment will build resilience into the system, ensuring our network can better cope with heavy rainfall while improving water quality in the River Mersey.
"The storage tank and pumping station upgrades at Mayfield are part of a wider programme of work we're delivering across Wirral and Merseyside to modernise wastewater infrastructure and reduce the use of storm overflows.
The Eastham project is part of the company's infrastructure programme, described by the company as the largest upgrade of water and wastewater systems in the North West in over 100 years.
£60 million is reportedly being spent in the Wirral alone.
