Main Feature
WHERE IS THE WATER INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND AND WALES MOVING TO?
AMP 6 Witten by Ian Clarke
ian@nodigmedia.co.uk
Anyone would think that given the AMP periods are of such significant importance to the Water Industry in England and Wales there would be a mine of information concerning the Water Companies plans for the next five years. After over two weeks of looking, contacting industry representative bodies and even the Water Companies themselves, the response to this is, more or less, think again!
From OFWAT there is the usual ‘this is good for the consumer’ information in that its summary of the coming five year AMP 6 period is basically that ‘… average bills for water and wastewater customers in England and Wales will fall by around 5%, before adjustments for inflation, between 2015 and 2020. This would see average bills fall by around £20 from £396 to £376’ – with ‘Companies set to spend more than £44 billion or around £2,000 for every household in England and Wales over the next five years’.
OFWAT also indicates that ‘by the end of the AMP 6 period customers will benefit from substantial improvements in areas of service that really matter to them’, including:
• more than 370 million litres a day saved by tackling leakage and promoting water efficiency – enough water saved to serve all of the homes in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds;
• a reduction in the time lost to supply interruptions (down on average 32%);
• 4,700 fewer properties flooded by sewer water; and
• cleaner water at more than 50 beaches
All of which sounds rather good until one starts looking for detail.
HISTORICAL AMPS
In previous AMP periods most if not all of the Water Companies in England and Wales have been target-led in that they have published details of the kilometres of pipelines (sewers, water mains, rising mains etc.) that they intended
to complete works on over the period in question. They also published data on the treatment plants and sewer works, outfalls etc. that would be built, worked on or upgraded over the AMP.
Many of these targets have been driven by the need to address water mains leakage, poor sewer networks, the infiltration they were subject to (affecting treatment plants downstream etc.) and the flooding incidents they have been shown to be responsible for.
Shortfalls in such a target-led system were of course bound to occur. With target led structures of this kind there was always the temptation to go for the easier, potentially cheaper option when choosing between possible projects so as to reach the length targets more quickly and at least cost. Choosing this option often gives a distorted view of value for money in that much more can be done for so much less. This also means that the more difficult projects are left behind due to the higher costs involved and therefore an apparent lack of value for money.
This also left the system open to potential abuse. Whilst the following situation is largely anecdotal in its nature the situation has been recounted by more than one ‘player in the field’ in discussions of the problems within the water industry. A typical conversation might be that say for instance a sewer length of some 300 m may have been surveyed and found to be defective at two joints but the remainder of the sewer was in generally good order. Within the ‘metres in the ground’ target-led system the installation two patch liners over the small defects would enable the water company to class the whole 300 m of pipe as renovated so taking a large chunk out of the ‘target’ with very little effort or cost. Such practices would have of course completely distorted the actual work in the ground outcomes for the water companies very much in their favour.
What perhaps added to the confusion in the AMP 5 period was the requirement for the Water Companies to adopt the largely unknown and unquantifiable entity that was the huge pipe network comprising the private sewers cover by the transfer initiative in 2011.
WHERE TO FOR AMP 6 So what is changing for AMP 6? Given that much of the readership of Drain
4 drain TRADER | September 2015 |
www.draintraderltd.com
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