We’re creating a new drinking water grid for the East of England. 

It is one of Europe’s biggest environmental projects and the most important in Anglian Water's history. 

Once complete, hundreds of kilometres of underground, large-diameter, interconnecting pipelines will stretch from North Lincolnshire to Essex. They will be supported by new infrastructure such as pumping stations and storage reservoirs along the route to bring water to customer’s taps. 

The pipelines will allow 265 million litres of water to be moved from ‘wetter’ to ‘drier’ areas of the region, helping to combat the risk of shortages, boosting resilience and securing water supplies.​ They will also reduce the number of homes and businesses that rely on a single water source. 

The project forms a key part of our Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP), which sets out how we will manage the water supplies in our region to meet current and future needs over 25 years. 

Our impact 

The importance of SPA can’t be underestimated. With a rapidly growing population and the visible impacts of climate change, demand for water will outstrip supply by 2030 without our new drinking water grid. The East of England is officially classed as ‘water stressed’, meaning that we must make careful use of this most precious resource to balance supply and demand. The new pipelines will play a key role in meeting long-term water demands and boost local economies. 

Our work will leave a green and social legacy. We've donated more than 2,500 books to primary schools and proactively work with children on literacy development, planted thousands of trees to boost biodiversity, built special 'commuter' fences to help bats with their navigation and donated life-saving defibrillators to communities. 

Project updates

We have more than 170 kilometres of pipe already in the ground across the whole stretch of the central pipeline. 

With the wettest winter on record from 2023 to 2024 and exceptional circumstances for large infrastructure projects in the UK, the programme schedule has been impacted. As a result, we have rephased some of the work planned in the region. Updates for each section of the pipeline can be found in the section updates.