Gavin Pearson, Editor NCE
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. That is probably how water industry engineers feel about their five year AMP8 spending programme right now. Capital budgets are going to double compared to AMP7 and engineers are charged with somehow scaling up delivery capacity before new work starts in 2025.
That challenge will inevitably mean finding new people or bringing some of those who have left back to the sector. It will also mean finding new ways to deliver improved efficiency and certainty across projects. This will involve some big changes to how companies work, collaborate and behave.
Our big interview this month looks at exactly that, as two of the authors of the PAS 2080:2023 decarbonisation specification discuss the value of the behavioural change it supports. They are also working together for their respective companies on Anglian Water projects and so are seeing it play out in practice.
Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance project is also featured this month as it pushes the boundaries of proven delivery methods to drive efficiency. For example, the use of the pipe plough method for laying larger pipes than normal can raise the length of pipeline placed each day to 2km from 150m with open excavation.
Public opinion about the state of water in the UK, and the political focus this has created is something that we as a profession and industry must reflect on. We cannot build, upgrade and maintain the assets that the country needs without public support
The significant rise in capital investment is not something that has happened by chance. We hear this month from several water companies about the need to overhaul old – and even Victorian – infrastructure, and create new connectivity for improved water resilience as climate change and population growth take their toll. New technologies that might improve leak detection and management will also come into play and we look this month at experiments in fibre optics within water mains – a solution that might also reduce the cost of providing broadband services.
The water industry is not the only sector facing such challenges. The dramatic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March has reasserted the risks engineers must manage with older assets. And in the UK, we are pleased to report on the remarkable wind tunnel testing of the Prince of Wales Bridge across the Severn. This is informing engineers of safe options for replacing the central reservation barrier that does not meet modern design specifications.
Indeed, highways are also part of a wider ecosystem as the UK seeks to clean up its waterways. Road runoff is a significant cause of pollution and can result in chemicals and pollutants getting into the food chain when it is not managed properly. This is the subject of a round table that NCE chaired with Keyline Civils Specialist, reported this month.
Unusually, we report two round tables this month. The second was held in partnership with Taylor Woodrow and brought together stakeholders and industry leaders to understand why, despite the importance of infrastructure to meeting many of the UK’s ambitions, the government often seems to see the industry as a problem, not a solution. How we talk to government in what is likely to be an election year, is something that the construction industry really needs to improve if it wants to see the investment that infrastructure deserves.
In that light, there may be lessons for other sectors to learn from the water industry. Public opinion about the state of water in the UK and the political focus this has created is something that we as a profession and industry must reflect on. We cannot build, upgrade and maintain the assets that the country needs without public support.
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