Scottish Water has announced a major upgrade of a water treatment works (WTW) is due to begin.

The water company is investing £16m in improvements at the Muirdykes WTW, providing water for homes and businesses in Renfrewshire.

Other areas provided for include Johnstone, Howwood, Linwood, Elderslie, Kilbarchan, Quarrelton, Craigend and parts of the south of Paisley such as Glenburn and Foxbar.

The works involves installing a new filtration building and process at the WTW near Howwood.

It will reduce the risk in the network of discoloured water caused by naturally-occurring manganese.

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Scottish Water has invested in £4m in improvements to over 100 miles of water mains affected by discoloured water in the region two years ago and installed a Wears Resmix system at Barcraigs reservoir near Howwood in 2012.

Iain McMillan, Scottish Water's Senior Project Manager, said: "These improvements in the past three years have helped to tackle the problem of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes WTW supply zone.

"However, this major investment at the WTW, and the installation of a new filtration process, will improve the robustness of our system and further reduce the risk of manganese and discoloured water in the longer-term."

The upgrade of the WTW, which will be carried out for Scottish Water by contractors Black & Veatch, is to start on about 1 September and is expected to be completed in the summer of 2017.

The new secondary stage filtration process will remove oxydised manganese from the system before it goes into the supply zone and will be housed in a single-storey building to be constructed on the site of the Muirdykes WTW.

(LM)