This has the two-fold advantage of reducing odour and treating more waste.

The £1.8 million facility at Ingbirchworth, near Barnsley will replace the old sewage works, which no longer cater for the population size in the area.

The site will be capable of treating more waste, despite being smaller in actual size. The works, once operational, will receive 10 litres of waste water a second, before treating it and returning it back into the local environment, in the space of approximately six hours.

When the old facility has been decommissioned, the site will be returned to grassland.

The works are likely to last until March 2012 and are part of Yorkshire Water’s £10 million investment into Ingbirchworth and surrounding areas.

Yorkshire Water’s community engagement team member, Laura Harrison, said: “Building an above-ground replacement treatment works would have been far easier than installing an underground facility.

“But the benefits this subterranean works will bring in terms of it not being visually obtrusive, whilst also massively reducing the risk of odours at the site, made this the best solution.”

Alison Brown

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