WORK has begun on a £16 million upgrade of York’s water-treatment plant to create a new operation capable of treating 35 million litres a day.

The Acomb Landing water-treatment works, which date back to 1846, have been extended over the years.

But Yorkshire Water said ageing equipment meant the treatment process was especially labour-intensive and the plant was not working to full capacity.

Claire Glavina, of Yorkshire Water’s community engagement team, said the investment was part of £1.9 billion of spending on facilities across the region over the next four years. She said it further underlined the organisation’s commitment to providing York residents with some of the highest-quality drinking water in the world.

She said an “enormous amount of planning and care” had gone into the project and it would also make a positive environmental difference.

The work, which is being carried out by contractors Earth Tech Morrison, will involve building a new plant and access road along with a high-voltage electricity sub-station and a pump control-panel kiosk.

The new plant should be able to treat more water – about 35 million litres every day, the equivalent of 14 Olympic swimming pools full of water.

Yorkshire Water said it would also have up-to-date treatment facilities to ensure it exceeded water-quality standards, with residents of York “receiving better-quality drinking water than ever before”.

Miss Glavina said that while the work would be entirely contained within the existing site, there would probably be an increase in traffic there.

She said: “We want to reassure local residents and road users that we’ll do everything in our power to ensure that any disruption caused by extra lorry movements is kept to an absolute minimum.”

For more information on the project, visit yorkshirewater.com or follow @yorkshirewater on twitter.

The company said it would not need access to customers’ properties, and called on local residents to be on their guard against bogus callers.