The Isles of Scilly’s pristine paradise is set to become a shining beacon of excellence in water management – we're proposing a major investment aimed at vastly improving water and wastewater services on the islands.
Our vision is simple: thriving communities, protecting precious wildlife, and crystal-clear waters, all powered by our dedication to high quality practices and cutting-edge technology.
This isn't just about ticking boxes; it's about creating a legacy of resilience and excellence. Our aim is to ensure that every resident and visitor on the islands will be able to enjoy wholesome and safe drinking water. But that's not all – we need to ensure that the future stays bright by securing a plentiful supply of water for generations to come.
Our aims
For clean water
- To provide wholesome and safe drinking water to all island communities - St Mary’s, St Martin’s, Bryher, St Agnes and Tresco
- To maintain a continuous, reliable supply of water that is resistant to drought
- To deploy modern treatment technology, ensuring that islanders get high quality, safe drinking water
For wastewater
- Improve wastewater treatment on St Mary’s and Tresco to meet national regulations
- Reduce spills to the marine environment
- Enhance the marine environment and water quality
Our proposals
Our investment will also enable us to:
• Reduce pollution
• Protect the islands’ pristine coastal waters
• Protect and enhance the islands’ precious wildlife and natural environment
• Provide innovative sustainable solutions to the islands’ water quality issues
• Keep bills fair for you
Across all of these improvements works, we will be sympathetic to the unique nature of the islands and to minimise impact on all habitats, wildlife and communities during construction and operation.
What we’re doing
Improvement works
We’re carrying out improvement works to existing water and wastewater services, starting this summer. These will provide immediate benefits building on the work we have already undertaken. These will be delivered under permitted development rights.
Welfare compound
We’ll be setting up a compound on St Mary’s to provide accommodation for construction workers, helping to minimise the impact on businesses who depend on tourism. Work on the compound starts this summer.
Assessing our long term plans
We’re assessing options for longer term improvements. We aim to have these operational for clean water across all islands by late 2026, and late 2027 for wastewater treatment on St Mary’s.
Conducting surveys
We’re carrying out surveys to inform our proposals in the immediate and longer term. We’ll be writing to tenants and landowners to request access.
Working with you
We’ll need planning permission for some of these longer-term improvements. We’ll be holding consultations this year with residents, businesses and other stakeholders. You know the area best, so we need your views to help us enhance and refine our proposals.
Protecting the islands
The Isles of Scilly is a precious archipelago, with its pristine coastal waters and environment providing home to a unique blend of nature and wildlife. Their status as a National Landscape reflects the national importance and the vital contribution these islands make to wildlife, climate and our wellbeing.
We’re committed to ensuring that our programme compliments and protects this status. We will carefully design our programme to ensure that we respect the landscape, and minimise our impact on protected areas and local communities.
Through delivery of this new investment programme we’re committed to:
• providing at least a 10% biodiversity net gain
• exploring a range of sustainable solutions such as energy recovery and solar panels
• working with local communities to identify areas where we can invest into the community to maximise the benefits and provide economic benefits – such as creating jobs and facilitating new housing
We want to hear from you
We’re at an early stage of developing these proposals for improving the water supply and wastewater services. You know the area best, so we need your views and feedback to help us enhance our proposals.
We held drop in information events across the islands in November 2023 and in January 2024 to introduce our programme. Thank you to everyone who joined us and provided feedback.
A lot has been happening since then, with surveys and investigations to inform design development, and preparing to start working this summer on the welfare compound on St Mary’s and our new water supply distribution pipeline on St Martin’s. You can read more about what’s been happening in our newsletter. This is the first of our regular updates to provide islanders with news about progress, and how and when you can get involved.
We’ll be holding public consultations over 2024 on each of the islands, where you can let us know what you think about our updated proposals. We’ll share details about consultation and how to get involved nearer the time.
If you have questions about our investment programme, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email or post.
Email: IoSProject@southwestwater.co.uk
Address: FREEPOST – SWW Isles of Scilly Improvement Works
Do you have any questions?
If you have questions about our investment programme, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email or post at FREEPOST – SWW Isles of Scilly Improvement Works.
We’re hiring
Our construction contractor Trant Engineering Ltd is looking to hire local residents to support construction where possible and have already started hiring. If you would like more information or would like to apply for roles with us, please contact us depending on the type of role you are looking for:
Additional resources
Please join us at our drop-in event, where you can view plans and talk to our team about our progress since our events last winter, including updates about the improvement works to the existing water and wastewater services on the Isles of Scilly.