Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/819678
NETWORK / 21 / MAY 2017 The FT Replacement Stop Tap Locking Lid – Customer Saves £222,500 in just 9 months! Yorkshire Water (YW) has been using the FT replacement stop tap locking lids for over 15 years. The average cost to YW for a complete reinstatement of a stop tap box is £330. Whenever possible they will simply replace the lid which, including the cost of a street furniture operative visit, averages £80 per lid. This means that YW saves £250 every time they replace a locking lid! Between April and December 2016, YW used 890 lids. In just 9 months the company has saved £222,500 by not having to completely reinstate stop tap boxes. Yorkshire Water comment: The YW Capital scheme for street furniture is allocated each year and always under severe pressure so we rely upon innovative solutions to save both time and money. The locking lid concept allows us to send one resource to site; the repair is completed on „ rst inspection rather than relying on another team to be deployed to complete the works. There are obvious cost savings on resource, planning, materials, tra… c management etc. but also o† en these covers are reported missing by Highways so we have a duty to respond (under S81 NRSWA) within 2 hours, so it's far better for us to send a man in a van to complete a repair than diverting a gang from planned works. Also obviously we minimise risk to pedestrians and road users with a timely repair. FT Pipeline Systems will be on Stand H10 at Utility Week Live EXIBITOR VIEW About the exhibition Streetworks are top of the agenda at Utility Week Live at Birmingham's NEC from May 23-24, with the return of the Streetworks Village and the launch of a new, dedicated Streetworks Conference, in partnership with NJUG and sponsored by Elgin. Speakers at the conference include Stephen Dance, head of infrastructure delivery at HM Treasury, and David Latham, co-chair of HAUC England. For more information and to book your tickets, go to www.utilityweeklive. co.uk Exhibitors at the Streetworks Zone include: Resapol; NJUG; Colas; Virgin Media; C.Scope; Metal Box; Line Search Before you dig; Landmark Information Group; Aggregate Industries; MBW; Tricel Limited; JSP; Synthotech; PF Cusack; Capture Green; Elgin; Pipe Hawk Plc; SRL Traffi c Management; Streetworks So ware Management; Vivax Metrotech; Kobus; Marwood Group; Filo Form; Cubis Industries. In association with: The pros and cons of permitting schemes Even with the permitting powers, many councils still don't feel they have su… cient powers to prevent disruption on their road networks. Originally introduced by the last Labour government, lane rental schemes are designed to disincentivise utilities from digging roads when they are busiest. Essentially an evolution of the permit regime, companies rent roadspace, but can avoid high charges by carrying out works during quieter periods such as overnight. In 2012 the government announced that there would be three pilot schemes to trial the lane rental concept. Highways authorities would be able to charge £2,500 a day to utility companies to dig up the busiest roads during peak times. However only two highways authorities have so far volunteered to undertake LRS pilot projects: Kent and Transport for London (TfL). The „ rst pilot scheme covered 200 miles of roads in the capital run by TfL. A study of the scheme, published in 2014, found that following the introduction of the scheme, around 90% of utility works and 99% of works carried out by TfL in the lane rental areas had taken place outside of peak times. However, there were a number of other factors at play and the report did not attribute the success to the LRS. All the main utility companies using the LRS had signed up to the use of rapid drying materials, which Tž said had considerably reduced the amount of time required to reopen roads and helped to save approximately 2,700 days of disruption across London. Counterbalancing these cost and time savings, the study found that utilities and their contractors had to pay sta¡ more to work unsocial hours. Even the price of accessing some materials was higher out of normal o… ce hours, it found. The Local Government Association, which represents councils throughout England, claims its members are being held back from introducing lane rental schemes by having to obtain approval from the Department for Transport to do so. But Kier's Anita Solanki worries that that utilities could be put o¡ from carrying out day to day maintenance and refurbishment works if lane rental becomes more common, which could ultimately lead to a deterioration in the quality of assets. "Works would become reactive because of the cost." With a number of questions still to be answered around lane rental schemes, the Department for Transport is expected to begin another evaluation of the trial projects shortly. the Department for Transport is expected to begin another evaluation of the trial projects shortly.