We're investing more than £489 million by 2025, in upgrading old water mains, installing new pipelines, improving water treatment works and maintaining reservoirs.
Some of these improvements take place on our sites. However, a lot also happens along the roads and in public areas.
To ensure we're doing the best for our customers, staff, and the environment, our teams across engineering and environment work closely together to plan and prepare the work thoroughly.
The extensive and complicated network we have needs constant care. Between 2021 and 2023, we completed 4,482 repairs where we replaced small sections of pipe, equivalent to 21.30 kilometres.
We have also replaced larger sections of pipe, 115 kilometres to be exact, which is equivalent to more than 1,000 football pitches.
Here are some of the more recent projects that we've undertaken with this investment.
Hampshire - A new water main was installed between Fleet and Odiham
We completed an £11 million project to lay 11.7 kilometres of new water main between Fleet and Odiham. The new main was laid to protect water supplies against climate change and be more resilient to a growing population over the coming years.
In this project, we used specially trained sniffer dogs to ensure a protected newt species was unharmed by the pipeline construction.
Poppy, the springer spaniel, shaved off at least a month of detection work from the project and prevented unsightly barriers from being erected around the site.
Work started in June 2021, and the project was completed two weeks ahead of schedule in early 2023.
Kent - Water main replacement in Upper Street, Leeds, Kent
This £1 million project was undertaken in two phases. Phase one involved laying a secondary 500-metre pipeline across private land during the summer of 2022. This was a vital component of the project, to increase the amount of water that we can pump into the area.
The project's second phase was carried out from July 2023 and involved the replacement of 535 metres of underground pipework with a new, wider water main.
Phase two was expected to take around six months due to the complexity of other utility infrastructure beneath the road's surface.
However, once work began, we were able to find an appropriately clear path using a directional drilling technique, which meant we could complete this mammoth project three months ahead of schedule.
Sussex - Equipment installation in Netherfield Road, Battle
In a £70,000 investment, we took the opportunity to install air valves on our existing drinking water main, whilst Southern Water had the road closed to replace their sewerage pipe.
The valves will enable us to better control the flow and pressure of drinking water in our pipework for the area.
Due to the installation of a sewerage pipe, we could not also install a new water main, because of the risk of contamination and space for both utilities to replace both pipes.
We will continue monitoring the pipework in this area to review if we need to undertake work to replace the drinking water main in the future.
Share this Article: