Andrew Mitchell MP has visited and toured the Severn Trent Water Treatment Plant at Minworth. The visit was arranged as a follow-up meeting after Mr Mitchell visited in 2008 to view new odour eaters that were installed following representations he made to Seven Trent on behalf of Minworth residents. Andrew met Simon Cocks, the Waste Water Services Director and Paul Louth, the Service Delivery Manager. Both men stressed that Seven Trent want to continue to engage with the surrounding community in order to minimise the effect of the Plant on local residents’ daily lives. Sutton’s MP was given a presentation on how the plant worked. Seven Trent explained that they were particularly pleased with the performance of the odour eaters. Andrew heard that Minworth Sewage Treatment Plant is the second largest plant of its kind in the country and that they are self sufficient in power thanks to self generation from methane gas. They are also about to start feeding gas back into the grid. Mr Mitchell then toured the site, seeing each stage of the process that incoming water goes through, before eventually being re-released back into the river. All the solids are used for gas generation, then as fertilizer to grow corn, the corn is then used to make electricity. Seven Trent stressed that no chemicals are used as everything is done with specially tailored bacteria. Andrew Mitchell MP said, “I was pleased to hear that Severn Trent want to engage with the local community on issues like environment impact, safety and education. It is important that they continue to work with local residents to ease the general problem of living close to such a major sewage works. I was impressed with the professionalism of Severn Trent’s operation and will be keeping in close touch with the management on behalf of my constituents in Minworth.”