A major Scottish Water infrastructure development was undertaken in Cowdenbeath including the construction of two new Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) which collected additional surface water from within the town. Historically, waste water from Cowdenbeath had been treated at a waste water treatment works(WWTW) on the south-east edge of the town discharging into the Lochgelly Burn. As the town expanded this WWTW became undersized and was converted to a pumping station passing flows forward to a larger works at Glenrothes. A holding tank of 1200m3  was retained for this purpose. The increased flows generated by the new CSOs, totalling 229,700 m3 /annum, could not be managed by the pumping station or holding tank so a new treatment facility was required at the site to attenuate and treat the intermittent CSO flows prior to discharge into the Lochgelly Burn.

Scottish Water did not want to re-establish a full WWTW on the site and were therefore looking for a low maintenance treatment solution which could handle intermittent flows and discharge, within consent, into the Lochgelly Burn. Modelled CSO flow and load data was provided for a nine year period and provided a basis from which to generate design parameters.