Lessons from the past: private pumping stations

Hindsight is a wonderful thing – and water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) have the ideal opportunity to use it as they plan their adoption strategies for private pumping stations ahead of October 2016, when 15,000 pumping stations across the country will pass from private ownership to the companies.

Five years earlier, in October 2011, they faced the deadline to take on more than 200,000km of private sewers that they had to find, assess their condition, and then conduct essential repairs once they had taken ownership of them.

Some in the industry called the whole process of adopting private sewers and stations, which was formally legislated for by government in 2011 to increase fairness in the sewerage system, “hideously complex”.

But out of complexity have come plans to ensure that the second set of adoptions will go much more smoothly.

The three key lessons that make up the backbone of the WaSCs plans are: early location, preparing for problems, and adopting early.

1. Early location
Unlike with the sewers adoption, water companies have had several years notice of the adoption (rules around the pumping stations were set in place at the same time as those for the sewers, back in 2010).

That means they can avoid the costly scramble that took place in 2011, when they spent millions of pounds trying to hunt down and map the sewers. In the end, they unearthed more than 200,000km, an 80 per cent increase on their existing networks.

This time the companies are already taking advantage of the advance notice and have slowly built their awareness campaigns, getting customers to register pumping station locations via online portals.

South West Water wrote to customers in 2011 informing them about the pumping station adoption scheme, and has since identified more than 300 of the 900 it expects to take on.

Thames Water started its campaign to find its 4,000 pumping stations at the same time, and has since run a number of local campaigns. Internally, it is offering staff a £25 reward for any pumping station they locate.

However, around half of the 15,000 pumping stations predicted to be adopted are still to be located.

Consumer Council for Water (CCW) policy manager Steve Grebby says this shouldn’t be a problem because the WaSCs have one more trick to use. This builds on the mass mail out informing customers of the sewer adoption by targeting areas where pumping stations are expected to be. “Telling them the pumping station will be taken off their hands in a couple of months will get their interest,” he said.

2. Early Adoption
The tight timeframe for the sewer adoption meant much of the additional network changed hands overnight.

To help the companies get to grips with the significantly enlarged network, the Environment Agency gave the WaSCs a six month grace period so they could get to grips with their new assets, resolving any problems early to limit the risk of fines and penalties. This is not being offered this time around.

With the money set aside, and to prevent blockages and sewer flooding leading to fines and penalties, many of the WaSCs have started taking on pumping stations before the deadline so they can fix any issues.

Severn Trent is adopting “those stations we deem high risk” of failure, and those that are difficult to access, giving itself as much time as possible to complete the necessary maintenance work.

Welsh Water started its adoption process in 2013, and has been taking on six pumping stations per week as it works towards its estimated total of 900.

However, Grebby warns leaving the pumping stations and their potential problems means the WaSCs would “inherit a lot of assets in one go and come in October 2016 find they’ve got a big problem”.

3. Prepare for problems
Once the private sewers were adopted, companies saw the number of blockages rocket due to the poor condition of large stretches of them.

Thames Water had to deal with an additional 14,946 blockages in the 12 months from adoption, 21 per cent of their total for that year, while South West Water saw their blockage figures jump from 3,000 to 8,000. This was repeated across the industry.

With this increased activity came increased costs. In the second half of 2011/12, United Utilities spent £21 million as a result of the 32,200km of private sewers it took on, while South West Water spent £44 million to determine the condition of and to improve its newly adopted sewers.

The companies have just £375 million in totex set aside for transfer, upgrade and maintenance of private pumping stations in the PR14 final determination.

To limit the costs, Thames Water is operating a “safe and serviceable” regime, whereby it will bring or keep the pumping stations at a minimum standard, below that found at other pumping stations across the region. Other companies are set to follow a similar regime.

Thames Water specialist network manager Justin Camis told Utility Week: “Bringing the pumping stations up to standard would be a huge undertaking.” He adds that Thames Water will then look to upgrade the pumping stations in future AMPs.