CREATURES living in the River Kent are set to benefit from a nicer environment thanks to an £8 million investment.

United Utilities has installed a new treatment process at its Kendal wastewater treatment works, which will further improve the water’s quality for the likes of salmon, trout and native white-clawed crayfish.

More than 31,000 homes and businesses in the area rely on the Kendal plant to treat their waste water and return it, clean, to the River Kent.

While it has always worked well, standards laid down by the EU Habitats Directive mean that certain substances have to be kept at even lower levels.

Phosphates, which are found in many of the daily cleaning and laundry products households use, are one of them.

Project manager Peter Hunt said: "The new process we have installed is called ferric dosing. It converts soluble phosphate compounds into insoluble ferric sulphate compounds which can then be settled out of the treated wastewater.

“Reducing the amount of phosphates in the river system reduces the likelihood of algal blooms, which could affect water life.

“The River Kent is designated a special area of conservation and is home to a number of protected species.”

As well as installing two ferric dosing rigs, engineers have also built two pumping stations and three state-of-the-art disc filters to catch and screen out the tiny particles. Work started last autumn and has taken about a year to complete.

Meanwhile, a further £2 million is also being spent on replacing inlet screens to help the works run even more efficiently and cope with increasing demand from the Kendal area.

Both projects are part of United Utilities' five year £2.9 billion programme to improve water quality and the environment by 2010.