Work has begun on a major �1.4million scheme to replace the town’s stock of lead water pipes.

IPSWICH: Work has begun on a major �1.4million scheme to replace the town’s stock of lead water pipes.

Ashcroft Road in The Crofts has become the first of 45 Ipswich streets to be dug up over the next year.

Anglia Water says the project has been necessitated by a tightening of EU regulations over the amount of lead allowed in drinking water.

The utility firm will target 3,000 homes in 45 Ipswich streets over the course of the project, focusing on the town’s pre-1970s housing stock.

The next streets to be dug up will be Beechcroft Road and Whitton Church Lane.

The project will then move forward in the following phases:

n Bennett Road, Brockley Crescent, Henniker Road, Shafto Road, Cromer Road, Wallace Road, Kelvin Road.

n Kensington Road, Mornington Avenue, Westholme Road, Broom Hill Road, Sherrington Road.

n Brookfield Road, Riverside Road, Waterloo Road, Blenheim Road, Beaconsfield Road, Gatacre Road, Hampton Road, Windsor Road, Sirdar Road, Surrey Road.

n Alpe Street, Cecil Road.

n Finchley Road, Hervey Street.

n Myrtle Road, Newbury Road, Tennyson Road, Back Hamlet

n Ashley Road, Bradley Street, Hartley Street, Martin Road, Pauline Street, Luther Road, Phillip Road,

n Rectory Road, Seymour Road, Stoke Hall Road, Shelley Street, Belstead Avenue.

John Clare, a spokesman for Anglian Water, said: “The motivation is simply to make sure we have not got lead in drinking water.”

n Are you in favour of the scheme? Write to: Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk