The roots of Northumbrian Water Limited are firmlybased in the North East, with its head office beinglocated at Pity Me, on the outskirts of Durham City.Serving more than 2.7

million customers in an areastretching from the Scottishborders to North Yorkshire, notonly is Northumbrian Water oneof the largest employers in theDurham area, it is also thelargest environmental companyin the region, committed tocreating a cleaner, safer andhealthier environment for futuregenerations. A further 1.8 millioncustomers in the South East ofEngland also benefit from the experience of NorthumbrianWater, under the brand name of Essex & Suffolk Water.

The company that we know today has a long and variedhistory - its northern assets include reservoirs high up in theNorthumbrian hills and down deep in the Tees Valley.

There is one name that is synonymous with the Durhamarea's water supply - that of Peter Lee. The Durham miners’

leader was also a clean water crusader, and he wasinstrumental in the construction of the Burnhope reservoir atWearhead. But whilst his name was given to Peterlee on the

East Durham coast (one of the1950s post-war new towns), thestory of water supply to this areagoes much further back in history.

In the second half of the 19thcentury there were severaldevelopments in the supply ofwater to Durham and surroundingareas. In 1860, a group of localgentlemen formed the ConsettWaterworks Company, mainly tosupply the three ironworks in the

Consett district and the local population of approximately20,000. Whilst initially most of the water needed was obtainedfrom springs on Muggleswick Moor and from open catchwaters,by 1872 the Smiddy Shaw reservoir had been completed;Hisehope reservoir following in 1906.

Northumbrian WaterA reflection on water

Above: Dalton pumping station circa 1900s. Below: DurhamCounty Water Board, circa 1920.

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In 1865 a second company was using the greatwater resources of the moors, with the Waskerleyand Tunstall reservoirs being constructed in 1879-80. By 1902 these two smaller companies hadamalgamated to become the Weardale andConsett Water Company and by 1914 weresupplying an area of approximately 412 squaremiles, including 111 parishes, 22 rural and urbancouncils, and most significantly, the City of Durham.

In the run up to 1919, there was an increase in the populationand industry flourished in the area, both of which lead to greaterdemands on the company. By the end of the first world war,those responsible for the wellbeing of the county had decidedthat a public enterprise, rather than private company, wasneeded and in July 1919, the Durham County Water Board(DCWB) was formed. The DCWB was made up ofrepresentatives from the area’s county, rural and urban councils,with Peter Lee as chairman. Many of the developments in watersupply to the Durham area are still attributed to the vision,courage and foresight of Peter Lee.

The Sunderland and South Shields WaterCompany (S&SSWC) had come into beingin 1852; it relied mainly on undergroundsupplies from the Permian series oflimestones along the coastal areas ofCounty Durham, and Tyne and Wear.Many ornate pumping stations wereconstructed during this time, the majority ofwhich are still standing, although theirvastness is no longer a true representationof the modern, and very much smaller,equipment that they now house. As thissource of water became fully exploited, a

joint venture between DCWBand S&SSWC resulted in theconstruction of the Burnhopereservoir (1930-1936) inWeardale.

The reservoir was jointlyowned but managed byDCWB. However, thecompanies' roles were

reversed in a second joint venture, the Derwent reservoir, nearConsett, which was jointly owned but constructed and managedby S&SSWC.

The current company was formed out of many mergers andchanges in legislation. In 1974, the government formed tenregional water authorities in England and Wales, whichmeant that DCWB became part of the Northumbrian WaterAuthority (NWA).

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Top left: Peter Lee cutting the first sod for Burnhopereservoir. Above: A plaque in commemoration of Peter Lee.Below: Burnhope reservoir’s gauge house.

The year 1989 saw the privatisation of the water industry. NWAchanged its name to Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) andwas floated on the stock exchange. Around the same time, thegiant French company Lyonnaise des Eaux (LdE) bought theS&SSWC and Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company(N&GWC), merging them in 1992 to form North East Water(NEW). It was in 1996 that LdE purchased the majority ofshares in NWG and merged it with NEW,forming the new Northumbrian WaterGroup. However, life in the waterindustry is seldom static, and in2003, SUEZ (as LdE was nowcalled) announced that it was tosell 75% of its share holding,which resulted in the companybeing floated once again on thestock exchange.

Heidi Mottram OBE was appointed asChief Executive Officer in 2010, havingmoved from Northern Rail Limited where she wasManaging Director for five years. Earlier that year she wasnamed Rail Business Manager of the Year at the annual RailBusiness Awards for being “an inspirational leader who makesa huge personal difference to passengers and employees."Heidi took up the position at Northumbrian Water following theretirement of John Cuthbert.

On October 14, 2011, Northumbrian Water Group plc (NWG),the company’s controlling party at the time, was acquired by UKWater (2011) Limited (UKW). Shares in NWG were delistedfrom the London Stock Exchange on the same date and it wasre-registered as a private limited company under the nameNorthumbrian Water Group Limited. UKW is wholly owned by a

consortium comprising Cheung Kong InfrastructureHoldings Limited, Cheung Kong (Holdings)

Limited and Li Ka Shing FoundationLimited.

Northumbrian Water wasrecognised as one of theworld’s most ethicalcompanies in 2011, earning a

place on the EthishphereInstitute’s World’s most ethical

companies list. World-wide therewere only 110 companies on the list,

only five UK-based companies and, ofthese, Northumbrian Water was the only UK utility to

be listed. The company has retained its place on the list everyyear since 2011.

The Northumbrian Water Group currently owns and operates 32impounding (or catchment) reservoirs, 43 water treatment worksand 268 service (or treated water storage) reservoirs. Water issupplied to customers using gravity in the first instance, along

nearly 17,000km of water main,although it also has 250 pumpingstations should gravity need ahelping hand.

In 2005, Northumbrian Waterinvested £34million constructingthe water treatment works at

Top left: An aerial view ofBurnhope reservoir. Top centre:Wear Valley water treatment works.Top right: An aerial view of ofDawdon sewage treatment works.Left: Bran Sands wastewatertreatment works. Centre page:Bran Sands aerator tanks.

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Burnhope Reservoir in the heart of the Durham Dales – adesignated North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The Wear Valley water treatment works was designed tominimise its impact on, and to blend into, the landscape. Overtwo-thirds of the facility is below ground and one-third is buriedinto the adjacent hillside, significantly reducing the visiblefootprint. The remaining elements above ground were designedin a style to reflect the style of a farmstead and small settlementstypical of Upper Weardale.

The project gave great importance to landscape design andhabitat creation. The planting incorporated into thelandscape design scheme was chosen to encourage a widerange of wildlife, including nesting and foraging birds.However, Northumbrian Water does not only deal with cleanwater, it is also responsible for sewerage services to its2.7 million customers in the north east. Sewage (orwastewater as it is sometimes called) is collected through aseries of more than 30,000km of sewers andtaken to one of 426 sewage treatment works,assisted, where necessary, by more than 600sewage pumping stations.

The Durham area is particularly well served, withthe Barkers Haugh sewage treatment workssitting on the banks of the River Wear in the midstof the city itself; other works are based in thesurrounding areas. After intensive treatment, thetreated water from the sewage is returned to theenvironment, whilst the sewage sludge istransported by road tanker and ship to the BranSands treatment centre on Teesside. The award-winning wastewater treatment works, with itsleading advanced anaerobic digestion plant, atTeesport, uses an innovative, natural biologicalprocess to convert the sludge remaining aftersewage treatment into electricity to power the site.

Since its establishment in 1995 the Bran Sands facilityhas won many environmental awards.

Since 2002, everyone at Northumbrian Water has beenable to take part in the company’s ‘Just an hour’volunteering scheme. People can sign up to take part incommunity activities such as beach clean-ups, gardenmakeovers, painting and DIY at community centres ormarshalling at charity events during normal workinghours. Since it began, the volunteer workforce has donemore than 89,000 hours of unpaid work for goodcauses. In 2013, a total of 1,651 people, which is morethan half of the Northumbrian Water workforce,participated in Just an hour, contributing 16,132 workinghours to support 728 organisations.

WaterAid, founded in 1981, is the adopted charity of theBritish water industry and raises funds to finance projects insome of the poorest communities in the world in Africa, Asia,Central America and the Pacific Region. Shocking statisticsshow that around 2,000 children die every day from diseasescaused by dirty water and poor sanitation. More than 750 millionpeople in the world live without safe water - this is roughly oneeighth of the world's population - and 2.5 billion people livewithout sanitation; this is 39% of the world's population. By2013, Northumbrian Water had contributed £5 million infundraising for WaterAid.

So next time you turn your tap on, think of Peter Lee and hisvision to bring clean water to the people of Durham - and raiseyour glass to him and the many who have followed in hisfootsteps.

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Top left: Volunteers at work for the ‘Just an hour’ scheme.Below: WaterAid, working in 27 countries and with plans inplace to expand this to 30 by 2015.