Heage, Derbyshire

Flood Prevention

Environment Protection

Weholite pumping station prevents wastewater spills to the receiving watercourse.

Overview

Heage Pumping Station, located between Heage and Belper in Derbyshire, required an upgrade to prevent wastewater spills into the nearby watercourse. The previous pumping station, which served around 330 local residents, was unreliable and did not meet Severn Trent Water’s standards for storage capacity and efficiency. SDS was tasked with replacing the outdated system with a new, more efficient pumping station designed to prevent pollution incidents and improve the local environment.

What We Did

SDS provided a solution that featured pioneering off-site prefabrication to improve efficiency and reduce on-site construction time. A bespoke 3.5 metre diameter, 4.5 metre deep Weholite wet well chamber was manufactured off-site with all internal M&E fixings, valves and pipework pre-installed. Two new 7.4kW submersible pumps were added to ensure the station could meet its required flow rate. The system’s design also included safety-focused features like defender covers, a lifting davit system and real-time operational monitoring for Severn Trent Water.

Results

The project was completed in just 11 days on-site, thanks to off-site manufacturing, reducing both time and costs. Effective project management and off-site procurement accelerated the programme by 3 weeks, minimising third-party disruptions and costs. The safer assembly process reduced health, safety and environmental risks, while the 120-year design life of the wet well ensures future work is limited to maintenance or minor modifications.

The project also achieved a significantly reduced carbon footprint compared to traditional concrete solutions, with a 70% reduction in site waste, all of which was recycled off-site. These efforts contributed to a more sustainable, long-term asset with excellent environmental credentials, improving both operational efficiency and sustainability.

The combination of diligent project procurement and planning saw a pioneering excavation, final assembly and installation period of only 11 days. Off-site manufacture and a studious design phase ensured reduced health and safety risks and improved environmental credentials over the construction and future operation of this asset, thus delivering to Severn Trent a highly successful end product.

– Shaun Godman, Project Engineer, NMC Nomenca

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