With some economists heralding the start of the upturn for the local economy, Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) has announced the opening of its new £2m Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) in Park, Derry.

Balfour Beatty has reported a 14 per cent rise in pre-tax profit for the first half of the year - an adjusted pre-tax profit of £108 million for the six months to 27 June 2009 compared with £95 million last year.

In a pre-close trading update for the year ended 31 July 2009, Mouchel Group plc, said it anticipated reporting results in line with the Board's expectations.

In its latest trading update Pennon Group Plc, owners of South West Water, said that financial performance since 31 March 2009 has been in line with management expectations.

Welsh Water has invested £4.5 million in a scheme to deliver environmental improvements to the town of Whitchurch.

The Welsh Assembly Government has outlined new proposals to deal with flooding in Wales. The improvements were prompted by the flooding in Summer 2007.

Chingford is the focus of a new study by Thames Water to reduce the amount of pollution entering the River Ching from local homes.

Two Bristol Water schemes, both designed by Black & Veach and built by Costain, will be presented with CEEQUAL ‘Excellent’ Awards at the Annual CEEQUAL* Seminar at the Institution of Civil Engineers this week.

The Awards will be presented to members of the project team by ICE President Jean Venables. Both projects were assessed as Whole Project Awards under CEEQUAL and achieved scores of over 90 per cent.

The first project, the Axbridge Raw Water Treatment Works, achieved a 91.2 per cent score, which was just pipped by the Barrow Gurney Additional Reservoir scheme with 92.3 per cent.

CEEQUAL is the assessment and awards scheme for improving sustainability in civil engineering and public realm projects. It celebrates the achievement of high environmental and social performance and demonstrates the commitment of the civil engineering industry to environmental quality.