Water sources infrastructure

Transferring water to the reservoir

To fill the reservoir and provide the required amount of water to homes and businesses, we’ll need to draw water from more than one source.

We identified three potential sources through the Water Resources Management Plan process as having water available,, and our further assessments have confirmed these sources.

The South Forty Foot Drain

This will be our primary source of water for the reservoir. When there’s water available in the South Forty Foot Drain that could be used for public supply, it will be pumped into the reservoir via the Helpringham South Beck, which we’ll need to upgrade so it’s suitable for this.

River Witham

When there isn’t water available to use in the South Forty Foot Drain, we will need to use available water from the River Witham. The water we use from the River Witham will be transferred to the South Forty Foot Drain. We’d need to build infrastructure to collect the water, treat it if required, and transfer it into the South Forty Foot Drain. There are currently two possible routes that we’re considering for transferring the water into the South Forty Foot Drain.

River Trent

When we need to more water than the amount we can sustainably use from the closer sources, we’ll need to use water from the River Trent, which we’re proposing to transfer to the River Witham with a combination of new infrastructure and existing waterways. Our proposals include infrastructure to collect the water, treat it if required and transfer it by pipeline into the Fossdyke, from where it would flow into the River Witham.

Having the option to use water from all three sources if we need to means that we’ll be able to secure a resilient supply.

Find out more

You can see the areas of land we've identified for our phase two proposals by viewing our interactive map
You can find out more information about our proposals for each source by reading our associated water infrastructure proposals document
You can find out more about the process we followed to identify preferred options for our associated water infrastructure by reading our Options appraisal report