Lanes reaches million job milestone with Thames Water

Wastewater engineers from Lanes Group have completed their 1,000,000th drainage maintenance job for Thames Water.

The company has totted up the total in little over four and a half years, as it has worked with Thames Water to keep its 68,000-mile network of drains and sewers across London and the Thames Valley flowing freely.

The millionth job was to carry out a CCTV drainage survey in Wallington, South London. It was completed just after 5pm on Friday 20 January by wastewater engineers Luigi Coulter and Arron Clarke.

Andy Brierley, director of Lanes Group’s Thames Water wastewater maintenance contract, said: “Reaching this total is a testament to the dedication of our teams and the strength of our partnership with Thames Water.

“By completing one million jobs, we will have helped many millions more customers, as each incident we’re called to often impacts on multiple homes and businesses.

“Our ethos has been to constantly push back the boundaries of what’s possible in wastewater maintenance productivity, while delivering the highest standards of safety and customer service.

“We also support 100% Thames Water’s ‘Bin it – don’t block it’ campaign against putting fats, oils, wipes and sanitary products down drains, as a frightening number of blockages we deal with daily are the result of this behaviour.”

Steve Spencer, head of Thames Water’s customer field services, added: “This is a great milestone for Thames Water and for Lanes, and demonstrates the great relationship the two companies have developed.

“We send our congratulations to the team that’s had the honour of tackling the millionth job today, and know they will have delivered the same great service to our customers that Lanes and Thames Water strive for every day.”

Thames Water awarded Lanes Group one of two wastewater network maintenance contracts in 2012, and made the company its sole wastewater maintenance partner in 2014.

Its 250 specialist drainage vehicles, with their eye-catching pink and blue livery, are regularly seen criss-crossing the Thames Water region supporting the utility provider’s 15 million wastewater customers.

Around 500,000 of the jobs carried out by Lanes Group since 2012, 50% of the total, have been unblocking sewers and drains. The rest have been made up of a range of vital wastewater maintenance tasks, including carrying out camera drainage surveys (7%), drain excavations (6%), and wastewater clean-ups (3%).

Lanes Group’s wastewater teams, made up of 880 field engineers and 220 support staff, are pioneering the use of Cloud and digital app technology to make drain and sewer maintenance much more efficient and safer.

Andy Brierley said: “From day one we have worked with Thames Water to introduce advances in sewer condition diagnostics, GPS drainage mapping and remote access cleaning and sewer rehabilitation not just maintain the system, but to significantly improve it, and that work continues apace.”

This innovative approach now allows Lanes teams to carry out an average of nearly 1,000 sewer and drain maintenance jobs every day. During periods of peak pressure, they complete 135 such tasks every hour.

Lanes operates five regional maintenance hubs in London, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and Buckinghamshire.

All maintenance work is planned, scheduled and tracked at a new Customer Solutions Centre, in Slough, Berkshire. There, Lanes teams now work alongside Thames Water colleagues to optimise the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the operation.

All maintenance jobs are recorded and tracked using a Cloud-based digital platform called FieldViewer. It has been developed by Techfinity, which donated the tablets given to team members to celebrate the milestone.

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