A new sewage plant is due to open in the north-west of England next year, but there is no word on when or whether it will be in use.
The city council has commissioned a study into whether the £3.5 million project could be used to reduce sewage pollution in the south-east of the capital.
It comes after a survey last year found that 80 per cent of people in London had seen the Thames estuary in their neighbourhood being treated with sewage.
The new sewer project will be situated at the junction of the East River and the South Bank.
The council says the sewage will be treated at a “greenfield site”, which will be used as a new “pumps and treatment plant”.
The sewage will then be treated by a large, automated system to reduce the levels of contaminants.
However, a spokesman said the sewage plant would not be operational until 2022, when it will open to the public.
“It will be a public toilet, and we will make sure that all customers have the opportunity to wash in the river,” he said.
“We’re not looking to build a sewage system anywhere, but it’s not just about London we think the city can be a model for other parts of the country.”
The Thames estuaries in the city of Bristol and Manchester are both being treated in the same way and this will provide us with a great opportunity to work with our partners on other sites.
“He added: “There are some very good reasons to have a new sewage system in the Thames.
“In Bristol, we’ve seen huge changes in water levels in recent years and the water table is very low.”
There are many of us who live on the river, so the impact on the city has been really devastating.
“So we wanted to make sure we could do something about that.”
The spokesman said there were currently a number of existing sites in the South-East of England, where existing wastewater treatment plants were set to be decommissioned by 2020.
He added that the “great opportunity” to improve the quality of London’s rivers was now there.
“You can actually see what’s happening with the Thames in Bristol and the North West of England,” he added.
“A lot of the river systems in the North-West are very low level, so they are being treated by the existing system.”
He said the wastewater project would be the biggest of its kind in London and would be built to the “highest standards”.
The spokesman added: “‘Great opportunity’ is not the word we’re looking for.
It’s about making sure we have the best treatment for the best use.”
