Case studies
– St Cloud nursing home, Callow End, near Worcester
The old septic tank system of the large country house converted for use into a Nursing Home, was no longer able to cope with the extra loadings. The leach fields were saturated and effluent was breaking out over the ground producing a nasty smelly boggy area. In addition, the local planning authorities were stipulating that their approval of the owner’s plans to develop the property and increase the number of residents was conditional on the installation of a suitable sewage treatment system.
Situated on the side of a hill the site lent itself perfectly to the installation of one of CRESS WATER’S 3-stage gravity driven reed-bed systems designed to cater for 68 person equivalents. A tight consent was obtained from the Environment Agency to discharge the cleaned effluent to a ditch that only has running water in it during the winter months. So far, there has never been any discharge from the system – the cleaned effluent from the reed-bed system, after passing through a small shallow pond, planted with a variety of marsh plants, soaks away into the ground through a series of swale ditches in a large general wetland area.
