Bob Tallentire, M.D. at Adien, WaterBriefing’s Expert Focus on Detection and Mapping, comments on the uncertainty surrounding the extent of the UK’s private sewer network.
It’s interesting to see two issues connected by a common theme in the news this week. Firstly Yorkshire Water announced that it is spending another £7m on increasing its operational presence and improving its IT systems around leakage monitoring. The cold weather will have an obvious effect on pipe bursts but on top of this Yorkshire Water are putting more resource in to help it meet its leakage targets.
Secondly, this morning’s news that Ofwat regards price increases as inevitable when the imminent transfer of private drains and sewers takes place – and the considerable challenge of costing the handover without access to accurate and reliable data.
On 1st October 2011 the costs and benefits of the ownership of privately owned sewers and lateral drains will be transferred to the water and wastewater companies. The scale of the task is daunting with water company sewage networks set to expand by between 70% and 100% following transfer. Defra estimates that over
220,000km of pipework connected to the public system which is currently the responsibility of householders will transfer to the water companies.
The maintenance of such assets will eventually become part of the total maintenance programme for the network owned by the water company. But how will water companies create a budget based on need for the maintenance of a network of private sewers and drains when the position and condition of these assets is not known with any certainty?
It has been estimated that it would cost some £1 billion to carry out a full exercise to map and survey private sewers and drains. The Government does not view this as a cost proportionate or practicable exercise.
Without doubt the private sewers and drains will not have been maintained to the same extent as the public system. Many areas of the private system have never been investigated or repaired, making it difficult to establish the condition without surveying every lateral drain and private sewer across the country.
Both leak detection and the adoption of private sewers would be made easier if the position and condition of the underground plant was known. They will certainly add to the over 4 million holes dug in the street every year to install new apparatus or maintain existing apparatus. Poor asset information will lead to ‘dry holes’ and third-party collateral damage, causing delays to the free movement of traffic, resulting in losses to business.
Efforts are being made to better ways of working. Adien have been involved for the last few years with a collaborative project with Leeds University and others to bring together existing paper and digital records with data from satellite and ground-based positioning systems. The VISTA project hopes that this coordinated data system will be used to create a three-dimensional map of pipes and cables buried underground. Pipehawk plc, Adien’s holding company are involved in several EU projects aimed at using ground probing radar technology to find water leaks. In the meantime Adien rely on the use of several different technologies to be able to accurately position pipes and cables to assist its partners in the water sector.
It will be interesting to see whether there will be any shift in position on the value of a full exercise to map and survey private sewers and drains in the light of the consultation.
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