WORK is about to start on a major upgrade of a water treatment works which will benefit more than 84,000 people in Renfrewshire.

Scottish Water is to invest £16million in improvements at the Muirdykes treatment works which provides water for homes and businesses in Renfrewshire, including Johnstone, Howwood, Linwood, Elderslie, Kilbarchan, Quarrelton, Craigend and parts of south Paisley such as Glenburn and Foxbar.

The upgrade will involve the installation of a new filtration building and process at the treatment works near Howwood and will reduce the risk of discoloured water caused by naturally-occurring manganese.

Scottish Water invested £4m in improvements to more than 100 miles of water mains affected by discoloured water in Renfrewshire two years ago and installed a cutting edge piece of equipment at Barcraigs reservoir near Howwood in 2012.

Iain McMillan, the company'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 water treatment works supply zone.

“However, this major investment 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."

Scottish Water has given an undertaking to the Drinking Water Quality Regulator to provide an effective manganese removal system for the area.

The work is not expected to cause any disruption to normal services to customers or any road traffic issues, other than some additional site traffic using temporary access.

Some trees on the water treatment site, which have had to be removed to enable the work to be carried, out will replaced following the project.

It is not expected there will be any disruptions to normal water supplies.

“Scottish Water aims to provide continuous clear and fresh drinking water to all our customers, wherever they live.

“While we cannot guarantee there will be no recurrence of manganese and discoloured water in the Muirdykes network, our upgrade of the WTW will substantially reduce the risk and we know the investment will be welcomed by our customers in Renfrewshire.”

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