News

With winter arriving any day now and forecasters unclear if this season will be as bad as last year, we are working on weather-related operational resilience in collaboration with experts across the water industry and beyond.  We hosted an industry wide event to look at best practice and what’s possible in future, to help customers in the event of an interruption to water supplies due to adverse weather.

Our Innovation team, and co-hosts Future Water Association, have welcomed over 40 water company experts and supplier representatives at a knowledge exchange roundtable in Coventry, focusing on the topic of alternative supplies.  We presented the outputs of a technology scouting exercise and the day was about sharing experience and ideas with peers.  The aim is to get new ideas and innovations into the business rapidly and easily ahead of another potentially harsh winter. 

Chief Engineer and event host, Bob Stear, said: “We’re really keen to get ahead this winter, and we think a great way to do that is to work as an industry - by collaborating with peers, sharing great ideas and learning from suppliers too.  This is a really important topic and all the big water companies were represented at this event, making it a very productive roundtable with a lot of energy.  We’re now looking at the outputs carefully to see what we improvements we at Severn Trent can implement quickly.”

Future Water Association CEO, Paul Horton, commented: “Critical to the success of Alternative Water Supplies is to have plans and processes as part of a resilient system. It’s important to think differently, constantly challenge existing ideas and be agile in nature and approach, sharing best practice using ‘innovation scouting’ methods and applying systems thinking.
These were the key themes coming from the roundtable along with a need for increased engagement with the Drinking Water Inspectorate and OFWAT. It was great for the
Future Water Association to be part of an event that brought together all of  these various elements and set out some great ideas going forward.”