As part of its Green Recovery investment programme Severn Trent (SVT) is upgrading old lead and leaking customer-side supply pipes across Coventry.
The company will spend £1.8 million improving its own supply network in the city, whilst also using the opportunity to upgrade up to 25,000 customer connections at the same time. It will invest £76 million replacing household pipes that ordinarily fall to the homeowner to maintain.
Since 1970 it has been illegal to use lead piping in new build homes however older properties may still have these pipes therefore customers are being invited to request an upgrade by the company.
The pipe replacement programme is part of a city-wide upgrade to improve water supplies and cut leakage.
Green Recovery project manager Callum Sproull said the work will “massively reduce” the chances of older pipes causing problems: “While we know that to do this will need to close some roads, we wanted to make the most of that and reduce any potential future disruption, which is why we’re rolling out two projects at the same time to bring double the benefits, with minimal disruption.”
The city was selected for the upgrades because the age of many buildings means homes are likely to have lead pipes. As part of its green recovery commitments, SVT said it wants to support communities from low socioeconomic areas to ease the financial burden of replacing pipes themselves.