Water mains over - the lessons learnt

They add that with the installation of a new pipeline from Harry Stoke to Clifton the work was always going to cause some disruption to residents living along the route he company admit there are lessons to learn from the communication process - despite the many contacts and meetings they organised - and “ there was always room for improvement”. They say they will be analysing the feedback received from the scheme and applying these lessons to any further large scale schemes.
 

They point out that although they received criticism for their communication process, they also received a large number of commendations from local residents for the manner in which they worked and assistance provided which they claim “was above and beyond what was expected”. “In terms of engineering – the scheme was an extremely complex project” they say. “Although numerous and thorough desktop investigations were conducted at design stage many buried uncharted services were found which affected the route of our new main”. Challenging ground conditions created great difficulties at times and were only overcome by changes to the design.

The company say that in particular areas this added significant delays to the programme and understandably caused frustration to residents when work went on longer than originally scheduled.

Finally Bristol Water say: “We would like to thank everyone affected by this major engineering project for their tolerance and patienc e throughout the duration of the scheme”.