Thornford WRC – Upgrade

Thornford Water Recycling Centre (WRC), Dorset, treats sewage and industrial effluent from the local catchment area to produce clean water for the local towns, villages and communities. This is all part of the 480M litres of water treated in the UK.

Wessex Water commissioned Pell Frischmann to provide Thornford WRC with long-term improvements, accommodating regional population growth, coupled with significant increase in trade waste. These upgrades would comply with the phosphorus consent required by the Water Framework Directive.

What we did

Pell Frischmann provided multi-disciplinary design services on this scheme; being led from our Exeter Office, with the teams collaborating across the UK, our Civil, Structural, Geotechnical and Process MEICA undertook outline and detail design for:

• The overall additional process capacity including:
  • Primary settlement tank.
  • Additional biological secondary treatment (using bioreactors).
    • The bioreactors are modular units manufactured off-site, and hence their numbers can be increased or reduced should the trade flows change significantly in the future.
  • Humus settlement tank.
• Chemical dosing equipment for phosphorus and alkalinity removal;
• Provision of additional sludge storage;
• Various upgrades to the site infrastructure including new power supply and standby generator.

Outcomes

The upgraded Water Recycling Centre is capable of dealing with the expected catchment flow and loads up to 2030; its modular design of the main process units will allow future expansion or contraction of the works to deal with any changes in trade flows.