Industry Insight Tour – Arlington Water Treatment Works

A Green Growth Platform event, run by the Sustainable Business Network.

Our series of Industry Insight Tours, which provide a greater understanding of how energy, water and waste services are run, continued in September with a visit to the Arlington Reservoir and Water Treatment Works. Run by South East Water, the site provides around 17.4 million litres of tap water per day for use in Hailsham, Polegate, Heathfield and part of Eastbourne.

The 2 hour morning visit began with South East Water giving a short introduction of their work and a talk on the history and ecology of the site, followed by the screening of a couple of short videos about the water treatment process. Then the delegates were led outside on a guided tour of the water treatment works and the control system, along with an explanation and demonstration of the quality testing. The water is continually tested for more than 150 harmful substances.

The water is collected from wells, boreholes, rivers and surface reservoirs (like the one at Arlington) and goes through 4 stages of treatment before it is safe to drink. The first stage is aeration, flocculation and clarification, the second is filtration to remove any remaining small particles, the third is using ozone, UV light and GAC to purify the water, and the final stage is adding chlorine to disinfect it. After this process it is stored in a closed reservoir and piped to the point of consumption.

The landscape of Arlington Reservoir is entirely man-made (it originally used to be marshy low-quality agricultural land), but since it was built in 1971 it has been managed to blend in with the landscape and to protect water quality by planting native trees. In recent years, in part because of more stringent EU regulations, South East Water has increased focus on optimising the site for wildlife. This has meant planting hedges to create wildlife corridors, planting more trees in an organic formation rather than the rows that were originally planted and cutting the grass every two years to encourage insect-attracting wildflowers. These practices mean rare species such as dormice, great crested newts and barn owls are present on the site.

This event marks the end of this year’s series of Industry Insight Tours. However our popular Sustainable Business Breakfast series continues in Uckfield on 7^th October 2015.

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The Green Growth Platform supports a thriving and innovative green sector in Sussex through a unique menu of business services delivered by a team of industry specialists, business advisors and university experts. The Platform offers businesses 1-2-1 coaching, events and networking, innovation and R&D support and skills and training.

The Sustainable Business Network is pleased to be working in partnership with the Green Growth Platform to run a series of networking events, site tours and specialist seminars.