United Utilities

The only three operational sites are water company sites.

So United Utilities have two.

Thames Water have one in the QE2 reservoir.

The reason it didn't carry on was because of the moves at the time by the government to remove subsidies and change things and the whole onshore industry just ground to a halt.

So it was a matter of timing, not the technology really that caused the issue.

And as that has climbed back out of the doldrums Floating solar has really started to come online now.

Again, the water companies, again, Thames Water, United Utilities leading the charge.

Farmore as well, for example, they're looking to build out five megawatts there in due course.

With that machinery, we were able to innovate.

That was a machine that we originally acquired for a water project, uh, called the Vyrnwy Aqueduct Scheme for United Utilities.

But with some innovative thinking from our HDD division, they said, "Well, actually, we could de-risk the Orkney scheme by actually doing it from the shore side." And we managed to use the pipe pusher and successfully complete that project.

So that's pretty radical innovation.

You can literally see this.

We have United Utilities as our local provider.

You can go online, you can check your postcode.

And what they will say is that there is a nominal or a safe level of all of these tiny little chemicals and toxins that humans can consume.

While your fresh water may be connected to the fresh water system, in Victorian terraces, it's not unknown and quite common for there to be a, strange enough, it's called a common main.

A common main has one stop tap at its external stop tap and it feeds multiple properties and then there's an internal stop tap in the houses but you can't send it off outside your house now you need to know that because these common mains are usually lead and if they're lead then you want to get it replaced and you want a dedicated main coming into your house and these days it happened to me a couple of years back there was a common main coming in we had it cut off we applied for a lead replacement grant for the through United Utilities, which pretty much pay for the entire installation of a new plastic main from the front.

I can't guarantee that you can do that every time, but it's something you really need to look at.

Build over constraints.

And today, we are talking about maintenance management in utilities with Chris Bates.

So Chris has spent a decade at United Utilities, uh, owning the predictive maintenance strategy, leading a team of over fifty.

He's currently director of operations at Binnies, where he leads the consultancy team, advising water companies on their asset health.

We're thrilled to have you here today, Chris.

Yes.

Awesome to have you here, Chris.

So you started as a mechanical engineer at United Utilities.

Yeah.

Car parks and footpaths were shut, visitors told to stay away, and smoke could be seen for miles.

Chania Kerr Slade, who's twenty, today denied destroying moorland belonging to United Utilities, but admitted driving dangerously on a road near the beauty spot.

She will be sentenced for the driving offense next month and will face trial next year for arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered and whether property was destroyed.

Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court was told four other suspects have also been arrested and interviewed and are expected to be charged.