Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 9TH - 15TH NOVEMBER 2018 | 7 Interview A s the chief executive of the UK's largest water and wastewater services company, Steve Robertson has his work cut out. But when Utility Week meets him at a bustling café on Tottenham Court Road in the capital, it doesn't take long to realise he relishes it all. That's despite the difficulties he's encountered in just over two years in the top job, including the company being hit with a record £20.3 million fine for polluting the River Thames with 1.4 billion litres of raw sewage. The six pollution offences occurred before his appointment, between 2012 and 2014. It's no secret in the industry that Thames Water has also been heavily criticised for poor leakage performance. In June, aer an Ofwat investigation found that the Thames board did not have "sufficient oversight and control" of the company's leakage performance, the regulator confirmed the water company would have to return a total of £120 million to customers for failing to tackle leakage adequately. Any regrets, then, about taking on such a mammoth role? "Absolutely not," Robertson fires back. "Of course there are challenges. If there weren't challenges there wouldn't be a job to be done. Leakage is an interesting and emotive topic; I don't think we have done a really good job of explaining leakage." He admits the company loses 25 per cent of its out- put through leakage and that customers think the com- pany should be aiming at "between 10 and 15 per cent". Thames, he says, is working hard to reduce leakage, fix- ing between 4,000 and 5,000 leaks a month, and that if it did nothing at all, leakage "would probably go up 70 per cent a year", adding: "You have to run really, really fast even to stand still, let alone reduce it significantly." The public perception of leakage doesn't make deal- ing with it any easier, either. "People think leaks are those when water can be seen running down the street. There's a feeling that 25 per cent of our production is running down the street and we are basically sitting back doing nothing." But only 3 per cent of Thames' water losses come from visible leaks, he reveals. "The water people see is not the problem, and therefore 97 per cent of the water that we have to save is hidden underneath the street, and you've got to find the leaks." This year also brought extra challenges. "In our part of the country it was the hottest, driest summer on record – ever. The soil dried out, and a massive amount of clay moved. We've probably got 40 per cent more work to do than we thought we had because of the impact of the freeze-thaw. We're not going to sit and moan about it. We need to get on with it, but those extra leaks will all have to get fixed and paid for." There's an economics to leakages, Robertson tells Utility Week over the clatter of cutlery being put away close by. "It's a lot cheaper to produce more water than it is to fix leaks – a lot cheaper. People in the industry talk about an 'economic level of leakage', but I don't think our customers are interested in that. It does have to get paid for, though; like everything, there is no freebie." Robertson doesn't shy away from the possibility of fur- ther pollution prosecutions in the future. "We have made a 65 per cent reduction in the number of pollutions since 2013," he says. "The cycle time for prosecutions is quite long, so the big fine was for pollution that took place five years ago. Since then a massive amount of work has been done. Because it is a long cycle time, I am sure there will

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