UK water has been making headlines recently for all the wrong reasons, with much of the country suffering under drought conditions and large stretches of coastline fouled by untreated sewage. The Engineer asked three experts in the area to give us their views. What are the biggest issues facing UK water infrastructure right now? DE: It has been a long held view that the biggest challenge to the water sector's infrastructure has been its ageing assets. There is the obvious example of Victorian mains in large cities such as London where, although incumbent suppliers can receive criticism for the leakage levels, the rate determining replacement factor often comes down to how many roads can be released for closure (without causing traffic gridlock) in order to dig-up and replace the network. The traditional intervention method has been improved upon in recent years by 'no-dig' technology, such as slip-lining or spray-coating. History has shown that 'point-of-failure patching' gains little, merely shifting the pressure to the next weak burst point, if the overall asset condition is poor.
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