Providing water services throughout the Severn Trent region
Members of Severn Trent Searches, who provide searches and reports for conveyancing, have been busy creating a sensory garden for locals near their office in Nottingham.
The sensory garden is located at St. John the Evangelist Church in Annesley – a stone’s throw from where the Severn Trent Searches team is based.
Continuing on our Legionella Risk Assessment series. Last time we took a ‘deep dive’ into the competence which should be expected of a risk assessor as well as proportionality in assessing large portfolios of similar building stock. In this article we will be taking a look at the guidance around completing Legionella risk assessment reviews. In our experience it’s not uncommon for ‘end users’ to ask the question- When should I review an existing Legionella risk assessment? Its not uncommon to hear very different opinions on this matter but fortunately there are a number of excellent information sources which can be consulted on when a risk assessment should be reviewed.
This case study describes how our Infrastructure Services teams spotted an opportunity to improve water asset infrastructure to protect future water supplies in a way that avoided disturbing the ecological balance of the local watercourse.
The site is a stream between a water treatment works and a town populated by around 20,000 people. The works is a private water network owned by our customer and managed 24/7/365 by our multidisciplinary Severn Trent Services teams.
Suhail Abbaas is a water quality and environment manager at Severn Trent Services. He talks about his job and how the team have brought in golden measures to achieve compliance more effectively and efficiently.
Last time we looked at agreeing the scope of the assessment and the independence of the risk assessor, next we will be reviewing the competence of the assessor which is a topic that is becoming more widely discussed. So, let’s start with a simple question – What experience and specialist knowledge should a Legionella risk assessor demonstrate? Well both BS8580-1:2019 and the LCA’s Risk Assessment standard for service delivery outline the expectations of knowledge and understanding required by risk assessors, these include but are not limited to:-
Read how our teams worked around the clock to ensure thousands of properties were unaffected by a burst pipe expelling around 250 cubic metres of water an hour.
This case study refers to a treatment works we manage for a customer that supplies treated water to domestic and commercial properties. Every day our team performs critical activities
to ensure a consistent supply of water 24/7/365.
In February 2023, a large burst resulted in around 250 tonnes of water per hour escaping from a three-mile strategic water supply pipe between two reservoirs.
Despite the burst being located and repaired within three hours, it was so severe that it emptied a large reserve of water held in a balance tank. This water would ordinarily keep the treatment process flowing, so the knock-on effect threatened to jeopardise our ability to produce treated water for a population of around 20,000 people.
And what’s more, with air now trapped within the pipeline, the race was on to bleed the pipes before supplies ran dry.
A compliant Legionella control scheme must be based on a compliant risk assessment, but what does that really mean? What do you need to do to comply with the British standard?
Many Legionella service providers claim that their risk assessments are conducted and produced in line with the British standard for Legionella risk assessments, BS8580-1: 2019, but what does that really mean? What do you need to do to comply with the British standard?
