Lanes named as Partner of Year finalist in Utility Week Awards

Drainage and wastewater services specialist Lanes Group plc has been selected as a finalist in the Partner of the Year category for the prestigious Utility Week Awards.

Judges were impressed by an initiative led by Lanes to develop a revolutionary drainage vehicle, called Van Pack 2.0, for Thames Water that has been shown to accelerate sewer unblocking and significantly reduce costs.

Lanes is Thames Water’s wastewater network services maintenance partner, delivering a range of services for the UK’s largest water company, including sewer unblocking, sewer cleaning, tankering, and specialist industrial cleaning.

The Utility Week Awards are among the most prized accolades in the utilities industry, sought after by providers and suppliers across the water, gas, and electricity sectors.

Lanes Director Andy Brierley said: “Being selected as a finalist in the Utility Week Awards is a fantastic achievement for our entire team and reflects the spirit of partnership working we have with colleagues at Thames Water.

“With Van Pack 2.0, we set out to reimagine what it is possible to achieve with a blockage removal van in response to Thames Water’s desire to improve customer service by increasing the number of first time fixes.

“This has resulted in us creating a world-leading drainage vehicle that sets new standards in operational effectiveness, safety, wellbeing and sustainability, greatly improving service levels for 15 million wastewater customers.”

The Utility Week Awards judges had asked for evidence of an initiative that showed commitment to partnership working to address key business and operational challenges.

In its submission, Lanes described how the £7.7million Van Pack 2.0 roll-out, which began in 2021, has transformed Thames Water’s ability to respond quickly and decisively to sewer blockages.

Van-Pack 2.0 vehicles have more powerful water jetting and CCTV camera equipment. They also have an array of new equipment to allow operatives to carry out more tasks, more safely, more quickly.

Cabs are air-conditioned and have night heaters to reduce CO₂ emissions and noise pollution, helping to motivate operatives to do more with less effort.

Analysis of the impact of 42 Van Pack 2.0s show that, once the whole fleet has changed over, they will eliminate at least 553 repeat jobs per month, and many more when the vehicle’s full potential is realised.

Complex blockages that previously needed multiple visits, the deployment of jet vac tankers, and larger teams, even road closures, are also now being resolved in one van-pack visits, allowing these resources to be better used on other tasks.

Lanes reactive blockage engineer Mathew Hiscock said: “The new Van Pack 2.0 vehicles are many times better than standard vans. One customer who’d been visited 4 times before was amazed and delighted that, with the Van Pack 2.0 we could solved the problem in one go.”

Lanes will find out if it has won the Partner of the Year Award in a Utility Week Awards gala dinner being held at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel in Tuesday 6^th December 2022.