WET News

2 WET NEWS MAY 2016 COMMENT "...anything that can reduce costs and make carbon savings has to be good" MAY £3M Bristol Water is starting a £3M project to renovate the Strategic Water Main that serves the Cotham, St. Paul's, Lawrence Hill and Easton areas of the city. Balfour Beatty Group's chief executive, Leo Quinn, has been appointed to the Construction Leadership Council, where he will lead its skills workstream. He will use his role to tackle the leak of talent from the construction sector. Engineering consultancy Grontmij has been rebrand- ed as Sweco, marking the completion of its takeover by the Swedish consultancy. Grontmij was acquired by Sweco last October. Sweco has 14,500 sta' , sales of SEK16bn (£1.3BN). In the UK, it has 800 sta' and o™ ces in Bristol, Cardi' , Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Maidenhead, Manchester, Newcastle, Peterborough and Solihull. £1.3bn 800 £500M United Utilities (UU) has secured a £500M loan from the European Investment Bank to support its investment across the north-west of England. £3.2bn The amount of money the EIB has loaned to UK water companies in the past › ve years. "I'm delighted we've won this award and I hope that it will make more people aware they can now get green gas for their central heating and cooking and companies can use it in manufacturing or to fuel trucks." John Baldwin, of CNG Services, on winning the 2016 Queen's Award for Enterprise. "Projects like this are huge, and we are faced with lots of complex issues that present themselves" Kevin Byrne, managing director at Seymour Civil Engineering, on the Northumbria Water trúnk mains cleansing deal, which is nearing completion. £78M Yorkshire Water's £78M project to upgrade its Blackburn Meadows wastewater treatment works, which serves around 832,000 people in She™ eld and Rotherham, has been completed. U nited Utilities (UU) has become the lastest water company to secure a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help fund its capital delivery programme. The utility has secured the £500M loan over 18 years to ˆ nance improvements to its water and wastewater networks. The company joins the likes of Welsh Water and Southern Water which last year received EIB loans of £230M and £100M, respectively. These loans were also to contribute to the two water companies' respective capital delivery programmes. In the past ˆ ve years, the EIB has has provided more than £3.2bn for investment by water companies across the UK. So, is this the new trend incurring lots of interest in order to help keep water bills down? Making savings on the national grid Sticking with United Utilities, what an interesting development regarding its energy demand response initiative, where it has joined forces with Sainsbury's and Aggregate Industries to relieve pressure on the national grid The three companies are co-founding The Living Grid, a movement of corporate energy users which aims to create 200MW of • exible power across the UK by 2020. The water sector is energy intensive, so anything that can be done to reduce costs and make carbon savings has to be good. Utility Week Live is worth the visit Free up your diaries for May 17-18 and pop along to Utility Week Live at the NEC, Birmingham. It is the only conference and exhibition to focus on the needs of the water, electricity and gas utilities. As individual companies, utilities may specialise in one or more of these sectors but there are common challenges and issues – streetworks, innovation, smart cities and a growing population, for instance – that need to be addressed. That's where Utility Week Live can help. The leading experts in their respective ˆ elds will be on hand to impart their knowledge and thoughts on overcoming these issues. Among the new features at the show this year is the Outdoor Demo Zone where some products and services are best demonstrated in the open air. There is also the Streetworks Village which will provide product demonstrations and topic-led panel sessions. Free inside this issue of WET News is the Utility Week Live preview to give you a taste of what's on show or you can check out the website at www.utilityweeklive.co.uk. See you there! T he Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) is urging the government to take forward its ten-point plan in order to reboot • ood policy. The trade body has published Turning the Tide, a new policy recommendations report for living safely and prosperously in an increasingly • ood prone country. Within the context of the National Flood Resilience Review, the EIC is urging the government to: • Initiate a national debate on the priorities of future capital expenditure for • ood defence • Review the UK's comparatively low protection criteria and the 1:8 cost beneˆ t ratio for • ood defence approval • Make the Resilience Direct database more accessible. Aggregate disparate databases into one national data bank • Introduce an easily understood • ood risk scale • Use smart technology to improve the quality of warnings. Make Environment Agency alerts 'opt-out' • Make fl ooding a primary consideration in planning policy and continue to clarify SuDS standards • Support innovative British property level protection ˆ rms both domestically and internationally • Review the Repair and Renew Grant so that it is a genuine, long-term incentive for individuals to improve their property defences • Reform Flood Re so that it includes SME property, ensure policy holders are rewarded for improving their defences by reducing premiums • Consider restructuring the Environment Agency and setting up a new Water Agency EIC's executive director, Matthew Farrow, said: "Flood policy needs a reboot, other- wise we will continue to see so-called 1 in a 100 year • oods causing untold damage and misery every few years. We need some speciˆ c changes, such as extending FloodRe pro- tection to small businesses, and making the Repair and Renew Grant a permanent scheme that incentivises home-owners in at- risk areas to invest in property- level protection. "But we also need to rethink our approach to • ood risk more widely. How can we make better use of 'big data' to identify and anticipate • ood risk and potential • ood damage? And should the economic value of areas be the main criteria for prioritising • ood defences?" EIC urges government to reboot flood policy Environmental organisation puts forward recommendations as it urges the government to 'rethink our approach" to flood policy. MEAN MACHINE RAG, FAT, PLASTIC and other solid or fibrous debris will cause blockages, disruption and excessive downtime costs to most sewage and effluent streams. PROBLEM! There are many 'solids handling' pumps but only ONE CHOPPER pump that can provide the answer. VAUGHAN has been designed and built to perform in the most severe applications and is proven over 50 years …WHAT PROBLEM? WET WELL or DRY WELL, SUBMERSIBLE TO SELF-PRIMING… Use the right machine… A MEAN MACHINE …and there will be… NO PROBLEM. Vaughan Chopper pumps Mar 15.indd 1 04/03/2015 20:05 The EIC wants a national debate on flood defence capital expenditure priorities

• Cover