NI Water says no upgrades planned for Coleraine wastewater system despite housing developments
NI Water has confirmed there are no plans to upgrade the wastewater system at Strand Road, Coleraine, which may cause challenges for future development in the area.
During a presentation at this month’s meeting of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, NI Water’s head of investment management, engineering and sustainability directorate, Dr Steve Blockwell, said wastewater capacity issues have led to an inability to connect new housing customers in some council areas.
Due to the wastewater treatment works and sewer network operating over its design capacity, and a lack of funding available to implement required upgrades to existing assets, areas including Ballintoy, Ballymoney, Coleraine, Dungiven, Kilrea, and Limavady were all experiencing constraints.
NI Water recently cleared blockages near Christie Park, on Strand Road, following complaints from the public, and DUP councillor and Deputy Mayor, Tanya Stirling, highlighted “ongoing issues” due to the wastewater system.
“NI Water has confirmed that they had cleared the blockages,” Councillor Stirling said. “However with housing developments being approved every month, will this lead to further issues especially in that area? Because I read that it was not going to be upgraded due to restraints on funding.”
Dr Blockwell confirmed there were no short-term plans for upgrades at Strand Road.
“What that means is that we’ll have to carry out more base maintenance to maintain or maximise the operation of these systems,” he said. “It doesn’t help if things that shouldn’t be flushed down the toilet are put there and block up our pumps and pipes.
“If developments are to come along then they must separate a large quantum of storm water, [to] stop the rainwater getting in the system and take it out, and that creates capacity then for the connections to be made. So that’s how we try and accommodate extra growth.”
Head of wastewater, customer and operations directorate, Gavin McCready, said Strand Road was home to a “challenging sewer” with a “long history of blockages and problems”.
He added: “It is quite a flat sewer along the river there, there’s a lot of development upstream with the [Riverside] retail park, and then there are houses that have been built up in over number of years and behind that.
“So that sewer does struggle, we know it struggles, but we do a maintenance programme across Northern Ireland to maintain them as best we can.
“We don’t have the funding to do every sewer in the frequency that we would like to, but we do try and give it extra attention because we do know the sensitivity of that particular area.”