WANT to spend a penny? Then see just what happens when your penny is spent with a tour of Fleetwood's new sewage treatment plant.

North West Water (NWW) is opening the £150m wastewater treatment works to the public on May 10, from 11am to 3pm.

The only fully-covered wastewater treatment works in the country, serving 330,000 people in Blackpool and Fleetwood, the plant was opened two years ago.

Though its discharges are a huge improvement on what went before, as the Citizen reported last week, Fylde seawater is still contaminated and NWW is now having to spend an extra £100m to achieve European bathing-water standards over the next two years.

The Environment Agency found pollution was still coming in from the Ribble and Wyre estuaries and storm overflows.

Ann Lansbury, from NWW, said: "The Fleetwood works began operating in 1996 and ended the twice daily discharge of untreated sewage in the sea.

"Sewage from Blackpool and the Fylde is carried along a 14km 'super-sewer' to be treated at Fleetwood, before being discharged via a three-mile sea-outfall pipe." Fleetwood is one of dozens of sites to be opening to the public during NWW's Open Week, May 2-10.

Ruth Bradford of NWW said: "Open Week allows local people to see for themselves what we do."

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