A MAJOR project has been launched by water chiefs to improve the overall quality of the River Blakewater across Blackburn.

An underground containment chamber, designed to prevent sewers from overflowing into the waterway, is planned by United Utilities at the former Brookhouse Mill site in Bastwell.

The chamber, off New Mill Street, will be fitted with two screens which are designed to protect the river from serious volumes of waste water.

Another part of the initiative will see a containment tank constructed at Percliffe Way, off Philips Road, which would be capable of holding up to 1,250 square metres of water, which would otherwise surge into the Blakewater.

Water officials say they attempting to guard against UIDs - unsatisfactory intermittent discharges - into the river.

If the chamber and tank are given the go-ahead then two other sewage outflows near Cob Hill Bridge can be abandoned, council planners have been told.

Project agent Sarah Allen, in a planning statement, says: “The tunnel retains flows during storms, reducing the volume and frequency of spills to the river, thereby improving the river quality.”

But the New Mill Street phase's landowners is protesting about the siting of the underground chamber.

Agents representing Siraj Kabhari, who holds a planning permission for new homes on the old mill site, says proposals for an access road to the plant will have a direct impact on plots across the development.

Planning officials say the dispute between United Utilities and the landowner is a private matter and may require modified proposals for the housing.

The new access road, security fencing and a control kiosk will be debated by the borough's development control committee today