Welcome to our Project Community Hub Page!

Welcome everyone,

The environment is at the heart of everything we do as a business, and we are currently in the early stages of developing this project, which will help to protect and improve habitats in the Tees Estuary and Cleveland Coast Special Protection Area.

Why a long sea outfall?

Building a new long sea outfall delivers better environmental protection for the Tees Estuary and the surrounding coastline. This solution was chosen by Defra after assessing a range of options to achieve the greatest overall environmental improvement.

The new pipeline will replace the existing outfall from our Bran Sands treatment works, which currently releases fully treated effluent, which has already gone through advanced cleaning processes including ultraviolet disinfection, into the estuary at Dabholme Gut.

Although this effluent already meets strict environmental standards, relocating the discharge point further offshore provides significantly greater natural dilution and dispersion.

By releasing already highly treated water into an area where the sea’s natural mixing is much stronger, we can minimise nutrient levels more effectively and provide a more resilient longterm solution for protecting the estuary’s unique habitats and wildlife.

Marine consultation on ground investigation work

We are currently in a consultation with the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

This relates to ground investigation work only, not construction of the outfall itself. This will help us better understand seabed conditions and inform the design of the proposed long sea outfall.

These surveys are temporary and low-impact in nature and are carefully managed under the MMO licensing process to ensure there is no significant environmental impact. They will take place offshore, and we do not expect any disruption to visitors or normal use of the coastline.

Consulting with the public

We do not anticipate submitting a planning application until 2027, and while we will carry out a full consultation ahead of that, we are currently working on plans for some information events in the coming months, to help people in the community to understand our plans in advance of that.

We will keep the local community updated on these plans and how you can meet the team and find out more.

Please comment here on the Community Hub page if you have any questions.

Thank you,

The Project Team