Southern Water is planning an £800m scheme which will help reduce the amount taken from the county's chalk streams.

Sam Underwood and Chris Janes, stakeholder managers for the water company, told The Romsey Forum, on Thursday June 29, about the project involving recycled water.

It will reduce pressure from the water currently taken from the Test and the Itchen.

The project involves building a new water recycling plant south of Havant to turn treated wastewater into recycled water. This will be transferred via a new underground pipeline to the Havant Thicket Reservoir. 

Then they will transfer it, via a new pipeline, to the Otterbourne Water Supply Works, where it will be treated further to become drinking water. 

The scheme is set to cost £800m.

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Mr Janes said: “These valuable chalk streams are the source of much of the water to over 700,000 customers within Hampshire. We don't want to be abstracting from the chalk streams, so we need to deploy several measures to meet the water deficit. 

“As part of this project, we want to utilise treated waste water to go through an advanced treatment process through a new water recycling plant. It will be ultra-pure water. Water recycling is a tried and tested advanced method of turning what was once regarded as treated waste water into clean safe, purified water.”

Mr Janes and Mr Underwood told the meeting that they were touring the region to tell people about the scheme and to answer any questions. 

Mark Cooper, who represents Romsey Town on Hampshire County Council, asked about alternative solutions. He said: “This is a very high-tech solution and very capital intensive when there are solutions which are more low-key such as rain-water harvesting and rainwater storage tanks. Why aren't those being given more priority?”

Mr Underwood said: “The shortfall we face is 192m litres of water a day, so we need to do everything we can to make up that shortfall. This scheme makes up 90m of that, so there is more to find. There is a lot we can do domestically, so we encourage all our customers to use water butts. 

“So we have to do a wide range of things to make up that shortfall.”

The meeting was told, if planning applications are approved, the the recycled water supply plant should be in operation by 2035. 

For more details about the scheme, visit: southernwater.co.uk/our-story/our-plans/water-for-life-hampshire/our-strategic-solutions/water-recycling-hampshire.