Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AUGUST 2015 | 21 Project focus O n the 1st October next year thousands of private pumping stations will transfer to water companies in England and Wales. The adoption of so many stations will amount to a significant, and potentially problematic, addition to companies' asset base: some of them are difficult to access, many of them are in poor condition and all will require maintenance and monitoring to mitigate risk. So how prepared are the companies for the change? The transfer has been on the horizon since the passing of the Water Industry (Schemes for Adoption of Private Sewers) Pumps Water companies track down private pumping stations Project focus ● Deadline of 1st October 2016 for adopting private stations ● Thames Water estimates 4000 such sites in its region ● Access, safety and maintenance primary concerns But with just over a year to go until the transfer, progress in tracking down stations, assessing their eligibility for transfer and making them ready for adoption has been mixed. Finding the stations represents a major obstacle in itself. For example, Anglian Water believes it has 2,700 stations in its region, but so far has only logged and surveyed 1,000; Thames Water estimates it has 4,000, but has only located 2,000 of these. Even with publicity campaigns and local authority help, the concern is that water companies will face being in the undesirable position of adopting stations they have not yet found, let alone had the opportunity to survey. "Customers will know if they've got a pumping station – they'll be in gardens, down the sides of houses – but they might not know about the change of ownership," says David Simson, Head of the Integrated Operational Solutions Alliance at Anglian Water. "We're going to include that information with bills and other mailshots, and ask for their help in identifying the remaining pumping stations." Justin Camis, Thames Water Strategy Lead, says that Thames has approached Water UK about a co-ordinated publicity campaign to help track down sites; its tactics also include a £25 incentive for staff and contractors who identify a previously unknown station. Thames has not yet adopted any stations but is about to undertake a pilot project to upgrade its first 100 sites. By next October Thames plans to have made all the stations it knows about 'safe and serviceable' even if others continue to come to light post-deadline. "The programme that we are working towards at the moment indicates we are going to adopt and upgrade 2,350 sites by 1st October 2016," says Camis. "That moves towards 3096 by the end of the AMP, and then the balance of the 4000 we expect to continue to be identified as time goes on. Those that we will have found by 1st October 2016 we will have adopted and upgraded, because we recognise that when that day comes, if there's a failure that leads to flooding or pollution, we will be liable, and we want to be in control of those things." What may be some relief to those involved in the adoption projects is that the companies which have made most progress on the task of Most private pumping stations are in unobtrusive kiosks by the roadside Regulations 2011, which decreed that any pumping station which serves two or more properties, or lies outside a property boundary, should transfer to the sewerage undertaker. Unlike the transfer of private sewers in 2011, which saw water companies inherit a vast number of essentially passive assets, the pumping stations require active maintenance, and need to be located, logged and surveyed before they can be adopted effectively: one reason why Defra and the Welsh Government granted companies five years' preparation time before automatic transfer took place. JAMES BROCKETT EDITOR WATER & WASTEWATER TREATMENT

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