December 2010 was the coldest in 100 years, wreaking havoc with infrastructure and highlighting just what can go wrong.
Ground shifts as it freezes and thaws, putting extra strain on pipes and causing fractures. Teams of engineers struggled across icy roads to hack at frozen ground in attempts to patch up the damage. Thames Water reported a fourfold increase in burst mains last winter.
Northern Ireland was worst hit, with around 215,000 properties affected by supply cuts between Boxing Day and 6 January. Northern Ireland Water received a reported 403,000 call attempts on 28 December, of which just 3,334 were answered.
An investigation found management failures responsible for “a major incident becoming a crisis” and said the network had been at no greater risk than others in the UK. Former chief executive Laurence MacKenzie resigned after the incident, accepting a £97,000 payout as he left.
Water company bosses across the UK will do well to heed the Northern Ireland experience, to ensure theirs will not be the next scalps claimed.
Winter war chests
Most companies say they have recruited extra leakage technicians and have invested in additional 4×4 vehicles and snow tires. Anglian Water says it has invested an extra £6.8 million this year, bringing its “cold weather war chest” to £14 million.
Aside from the foreseeable consequences of chill weather, last year’s extreme cold gave Anglian Water a few surprises. In Lincolnshire, customers complained about the smell from a sewage works as temperatures below -20 degrees froze the chemical normally used for odour control.
“We may not be able to predict the weather,” says Paul Valleley, director of water services at Anglian Water, “but we can prepare as best we can for whatever it throws at us. We’re going into winter in a very strong position, with more leakage technicians, and more repair and maintenance gangs available than at any point since 2007.”
But water companies must do more than protect their networks. Customers suffering burst pipes in their own homes are often unsure who to call and expect water companies to help. Firms field a lot of calls from distressed homeowners and have to explain that it is not their domain to fix domestic emergencies.
Plans in place
Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, says: “It is important that water companies have thorough plans in place for dealing with frozen and burst pipes and for communication from and to their customers. In advance, companies can provide help to customers on preparing for cold weather – such as lagging pipes. And if there is a problem, call centres need to be manned up to deal with it – as well as having enough people and equipment on the ground.”
The Association of British Insurers says December 2010 saw a record £900 million-worth of property damage claims on its members. Of that, £680 million was due to burst pipes – 35 per cent more than the whole of the previous winter.
Determined not to see a repeat of the chaos, government departments, resilience forums, voluntary groups and industry this year launched a Get Ready for Winter campaign.
Anne McIntosh MP, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Water Group, says: “In some ways we were not prepared – either individually or collectively – for the severity of the weather. The government and other agencies have taken action to ensure our infrastructure, particularly transport, is better prepared this winter.
“We must become more resilient to these extremes of climate which, with climate change, appear to be becoming more frequent.”
UK water companies have published tips for householders on their websites on protecting their boilers and pipes from the cold. Some went further to spread the message. The prize for the most eye-catching publicity stunt must go to United Utilities for its giant frozen living room in Manchester Piccadilly station. The three-tonne ice sculpture certainly caught the attention of the local media.
Somewhat less imaginative was Veolia’s deployment of women in branded bikinis on cold November streets to tell people to lag their pipes.
It is not clear how the success of the pipe-lagging drive will be measured, but with the weather starting to turn, it might not be long before water firms’ plans are put to the test.
by Megan Darby