Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
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4 ALLIANCES 2019 INTRODUCTION Long-term collaborations pay dividends for water Water companies that have committed themselves to long-term partnerships will feel the benefits as decisions loom over AMP7 delivery T his year's Alliances supplement is published at a critical time for many water companies and their contractor partners. The ink is hardly dry on the first dra of PR19 business plans, and already the questions over AMP7 partnerships will be looming large – who will be paired with who for the 2020-25 period, and which combination is best for reaching the ambitious goals that have been set by company strategists and regulators? But for those water companies and con- tractors that have committed themselves to longer-term deals, these anxieties need not be present. Rather than a frenzy of re-ten- dering and reorganisation, the coming of 2020 will merely mean a chance to assess performance, refresh goals and targets and press on with delivering the outcomes that matter. The awarding of 10- or even 15-year deals for some contractors in AMP6 – notably by Anglian Water and Thames Water – was seen as a radical change by many, but the evidence of the first few years of operation suggests that this thinking will become standard practice for the industry. The largest collabora- tions such as eight2O and the @One Alli- ance might have taken considerable effort to set up and some time to initially gel, but the evidence suggests that they are now paying dividends for client and contractor partners alike. Participants talk of a higher degree of trust that comes from knowing that a team is together for the long haul, experiencing the shared pain and gain of incentives and penal- ties. Recruitment, training and talent development programmes also appear to be flourishing in these environments, which bodes well for the future of an industry oen talked about as beset with skills shortages. One criticism of long-term alliancing has been that those companies that are shut out of the big collaborations will find themselves excluded for a decade or more and that their involvement and capabilities in the water sector may decline as a result. Against this back- drop, direct procurement – which water companies will be duty-bound to con- sider for projects of £100 million or more – is a welcome development that will give contractors, and partnerships of contractors, the chance to continue to bid for work on the largest projects inde- pendent of the water company client. In this supplement, we have for the first time profiled the contractor partnerships working on the Tideway Tunnel, the super-sewer that has been directly pro- cured on behalf of Thames Water cus- tomers, and offers a fine example of how direct procurement will work for the industry. But although London can boast the biggest water mega-project for a genera- tion, there are plenty of examples within these pages of significantly sized projects up and down the UK, from the Shieldhall Tunnel in Scotland to the Mayflower Treatment Works in the South West, which owe their existence and delivery to hard-working teams of contractors and their collaborative alliances. As water companies mull the future of their alliancing arrangements for AMP7 and beyond, there is plenty to be proud of – and plenty to look forward to. Tideway, P26 H5O, P21 Esh-Stantec, P10