Yorkshire Water To Create New Constructed Wetland Near Doncaster

Yorkshire Water is poised to provide a natural, sustainable and low-carbon way of treating water before it is returned to the environment, with the construction of a new integrated wetland at its wastewater treatment works in Clifton, near Doncaster.

The wetland itself will remove phosphorus from millions of litres of treated water, as well as increasing biodiversity in the local area and attracting a range of different wildlife, such as bees and other pollinators, breeding birds, reptiles and amphibians.

It will be about the size of three Olympic swimming pools, featuring interconnected ponds that will be filled with more than 20,000 wetland plants.

Lead project manager Michael Housby explained that this project is the first of its kind to appear in Yorkshire, providing all sorts of benefits for the treatment works, as well as the local environment.

He went on to say: “The new wetland will reduce the reliance of energy-heavy treatment processes and provide a sustainable way to remove phosphorus while creating wildlife diversity and achieving a biodiversity net gain.

“As part of the project we will be looking to engage with the local community and plan to offer opportunities for local groups and schools to come to the treatment works to help plant some of the 20,000 plants that will carry this natural treatment.”

Yorkshire Water also recently teamed up with the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust to develop a new habitat for wading birds at Brooks Bank Farm near Sheffield – and it has been so successful that a vulnerable species of bird has now been attracted to the area.

Curlews are now included on the European red list, which means that the species faces a high risk of extinction. In the last 25 years, the breeding population of the bird has halved, but now they’ve been spotted visiting the site’s newly created wader scrapes.

And it’s not just curlews that have been sighted here, either – other birds such as meadow pipits, stonechats, lapwings and snipes have all been seen, as well.

Manager of the Sheffield Lakeland Partnership Keith Tomkins explained that working alongside Brooks Bank Farm has meant that grassland bird breeding habitats have been bth retained and enhanced, with tree planting also having been undertaken around the site to improve woodland connectivity across the landscape.

And back in March, the water supplier announced that the redevelopment of the duck marsh at Rodley Nature Reserve was nearing completion. Yorkshire Water was sponsoring relandscaping work to transform the area and create different water depths to help promote species diversity.

The hope is that the project will attract species such as the common tern, little ringed plovers and other passage wading birds on new islands and spits, similar to Dubai’s palm island.

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