Pre-adoption drainage surveys prepare for housing handover

Drainage engineers from Lanes Group plc have carried out pre-adoption drainage surveys for a developer building 77 new homes in Buckinghamshire.

The Lanes St Neots depot was commissioned to carry out the CCTV drainage surveys to establish the condition of the newly-installed drainage pipes as part of a site handover process.

The new housing estate is located in Milton Keynes, close to the northbound Newport Pagnell services on the M1 motorway.

Lanes St Neots Area Development Manager Matt Jinks said: “Pre-adoption drainage surveys like this are essential to ensure the drain and sewer pipes serving new properties are in good condition and working as they should.

“Our CCTV survey teams will find out if there are any defects in the new sewers, or if they are blocked, for example caused by building material getting into pipe runs, that needs to be removed.

“Our survey reports will also be handed over to the relevant water company so it can be confident that the drainage system meets its standard to become part of the local sewer system.”

This process is called a Section 104 Agreement, named after Section 104 of the Water Industry Act 1991 that sets out the standards and approved materials for pipework that is adopted into public sewer systems.

The survey reports form an important record of the extent and structure of the drainage system that can be used by the site’s owner to prepare drainage maintenance plans or any future construction work.

The Lanes team, made up of the CCTV drainage survey unit and a jet vac tanker, surveyed 920 metres of pipe, made up of 89 separate pipe runs, across the estate, owned by a social housing landlord.

Most of the pipes were 150mm in diameter and made of vitrified clay, with one 225mm diameter clay pipe. The rest were 300mm diameter smooth concrete pipes.

Lanes St Neots carries out CCTV drainage surveys of all kinds for house builders, commercial property owners, manufacturers, large landowners, and government agencies.

It uses a range of the most advanced CCTV drainage survey camera equipment, including push-rod camera systems and robotic crawler cameras, to capture HD-quality video and clearly identify the condition of all pipework and associated assets, both above and belowground.

Where faults are found, for example pipe cracks, collapsed pipes, displaced joints, or blockages, Lanes can carry out remedial work, including full-length pipe lining, patch lining, pipe cleaning and, if necessary, pipe excavation and replacement.

A key advantage for Lanes clients is the detail and accuracy of CCTV drainage surveys, and the timely way they are produced, with client specifications taken into account.

All CCTV survey data gathered by the St Neots depot is now sent securely via the cloud to be processed at Lanes’ national CCTV survey centre.

This ensures survey reports are prepared to the highest standard and within agreed deadlines by expert, qualified technicians.

The national centre can also more easily coordinate the processing of CCTV survey data for large drainage and construction programmes, across single or multiple sites.