A £3.6bn proposal to stop sewage being discharged into Windermere, England’s largest lake, has been unveiled.
The plans, which are backed by the local water company United Utilities and clean water campaigners, would see a tunnel up to 12 miles (19km) long built to transport sewage away from the lake.
The Lake District is a Unesco World Heritage site and attracts close to 18m visitors each year.
Windermere is at its heart, with the lake holding around 300bn litres of water. That is so big that it can take 9 months for water entering one end to reach the other.
The ORiW (“Only Rainwater into Windermere”) proposal would see 12,800 people connected to the sewage network for the first time with up to 86 miles (138km) of new sewage infrastructure and a single wastewater treatment works built to serve them at the end of a 4m-wide sewage tunnel.
Two slightly different plans are being put forward. Both have the tunnel at their heart but one would see the treated effluent discharged into the River Leven, the other into the Irish Sea at Ulverston.
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