IN Brief:
- Galliford Try has secured a £110m Severn Trent Water contract for the River Mease Improvement project.
- The scheme centres on a 23km cross-country wastewater pipeline, including a dualled section at the A42 crossing.
- The infrastructure will transfer treated flows out of the River Mease catchment as part of a wider environmental improvement programme.
Galliford Try has secured a £110 million contract from Severn Trent Water to deliver the River Mease Improvement project, centred on a 23km cross-country wastewater pipeline between treatment works at Packington and Measham and a new discharge point into the River Tame.
The contractor’s Environment business will deliver the scheme under requirements set through the Water Industry National Environment Programme, or WINEP. The route will carry treated flows away from the River Mease catchment, with the works including a dualled section where the pipeline crosses the A42 before reaching the designated River Tame outfall.
The engineering package forms part of a long-running environmental programme for the River Mease, a lowland clay river designated both as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. The protected catchment supports nationally significant populations of spined loach and bullhead, while assessments of the SAC have identified the need for continued improvement in its ecological condition.
A central issue is the existing discharge of treated wastewater from the Packington and Measham sewage treatment works. Those flows alter the river’s natural regime and contribute to the pressures that the improvement programme is intended to address, with Severn Trent also carrying out treatment upgrades and wider phosphate-removal work across the catchment.
The current Galliford Try award does not give a construction completion date. Earlier project information identified March 2027 as a target for transferring treated wastewater, while enhanced phosphate-removal work at other sewage works extends towards 2030, creating a programme in which treatment, pipeline, highway-crossing, and receiving-water requirements have to remain coordinated.
Bill Hocking, Chief Executive of Galliford Try, said: “We are delighted to be strengthening our long-standing relationship with Severn Trent with a project of this scale and significance. Delivering the River Mease Improvement project reinforces our position as a leading delivery partner for complex, large-scale water and wastewater infrastructure projects that support environmental compliance and long-term resilience.”
The cross-country route creates a different delivery profile from work contained within a treatment site. A 23km pipeline requires access across multiple land parcels, coordinated earthworks, reinstatement, and interfaces with roads and existing services, while the A42 crossing adds a defined engineering constraint to the programme.
The receiving outfall also has to operate within the environmental controls applied to the River Tame. Transferring treated wastewater between catchments does not remove the need to regulate discharge quality, and the receiving water has to be protected from deterioration once the new operating arrangement is introduced.
The ecological objective extends beyond reducing a single pollutant. Removing treated wastewater from the River Mease changes both water quality and the volume contributing to the river’s flow, so the wider programme has had to consider how the catchment will behave after the transfer takes place.
Project planning has consequently included measures intended to maintain an appropriate flow regime while the wastewater component is removed. The pipeline is the principal physical asset enabling that change, but its eventual performance will be judged alongside treatment effectiveness, outfall operation, and environmental conditions within both catchments.
The project also has to interface with upgrades at the Packington and Measham treatment works. Construction of the transfer infrastructure cannot be treated as an isolated linear package because treatment, connection, commissioning, and permitting activities all have to reach compatible stages before the revised discharge arrangement can become operational.
That sequencing places considerable emphasis on programme control. Cross-country earthworks can advance independently across sections of route, but final commissioning depends on the treatment works, pipeline, crossing infrastructure, outfall, and operating permissions functioning as one system.
The £110 million award adds a substantial utilities and civil-engineering package to Galliford Try’s water-sector workload at a time when WINEP commitments are driving investment across the regulated water industry. The physical route may be measured in kilometres of pipe, but completion will depend on the less visible interfaces between construction, treatment processes, permits, and protected-river requirements.
