Multi-million pound investment plan to transfer waste water from Birmingham to Leighton Buzzard

Millions of gallons of water are set to be swept down the Grand Union Canal from just outside Birmingham to Luton, via a treatment plant at Leighton Buzzard.

Affinity Water has revealed its multi-million pound plans to use the canal and help provide “a sustainable water supply for the future”.

The first phase is costed around £250m, which will mean increased bills for its customers.

Waste water would be pumped via the canal network from Minworth to a large water treatment plant located south of the Leighton Buzzard bypass, opposite the Grovebury Road junction.

Leighton-Linslade town councillors have ambitions to restore the sands pits in the vicinity to provide public open space. This policy was included among aspirations to work towards with Central Bedfordshire Council, at a meeting in November 2021.

A report referred to that as something achievable through its partnership with CBC, which would liaise with quarry operators and landowners, rather than by the town council in isolation.

Scientists, geologists and engineers at Affinity Water plan to use a 62-mile stretch of the Grand Union Canal to channel the water to its destination.

The company’s head of water resources management planning Dr Doug Hunt explained: “The Grand Union Canal is really important to us as it’s the first of the major developments we’re proposing to manage our water resources.

“This will allow us to reduce abstraction from chalk groundwater sources in sensitive areas. We want to stop unsustainable abstraction from the chalk aquifers.”

Although the scheme will be recycling waste water from near Birmingham, the supply will be treated properly and naturally, according to Dr Hunt.

“The water will interact with a number of rivers and small reservoirs, which the Canal and River Trust owns and operates, before being treated again at Leighton Buzzard to meet strict potable drinking water standards,” he said.

“Waste water is already present in our water systems. The supply used for this project will be treated to a high standard. As it travels down the canal, the water will interact with natural biological processes.”

Treated water will flow from Severn Trent Water’s Minworth site via a new closed pipeline transfer of almost ten miles to a location on the canal near Atherstone in Warwickshire, added the website.

“It would then pass through the Coventry Canal, the Oxford Canal and the Grand Union, with a small number of pump and lock upgrades to enable this transfer.

“Water would be abstracted at a location near Leighton Buzzard and stored, before being treated at a new water treatment works and transferred to the Affinity Water supply area.”

Independent Leighton Linslade West CBC councillor Steve Owen described the company’s plan as forming “part of the so-called national water grid”, warning: “Such a plant would blow a hole in any intentions by the town council and CBC to turn worked-out sandpits south of the bypass into public open space.”

He wants CBC’s executive to examine the proposals, while Liberal Democrat Leighton Linslade North councillor Kevin Pughe is to raise the issue at town council level.