Anglian Water Launches Recruitment Drive To Support Sustainability
Anglian Water Launches Recruitment Drive To Support Sustainability
Anglian Water has launched its largest-ever recruitment drive to help support its environmental commitments and expand its workforce of leakage technicians and engineers, now looking for candidates to fill 200 roles around the region.
Water leak detection and repair has long been a priority for the water supplier – and it’s important that this is the focus for the sector as a whole, given that three billion litres of water is lost through leakage in England alone every day.
In 2017, Anglian Water became the first water company to make use of thermal imaging drones to identify hidden leaks and, since then, the supplier has gone on to use naval hydrophones, satellite imagery and fibre optic technology to help it find and repair leaks.
And since privatisation, the company has succeeded in reducing leaks by 38 per cent across its network. In 2020, the leakage and repair teams saved enough water to fill ten Olympic swimming pools on a daily basis.
Head of leakage Sean McCarthy said: “We hate leaks as much as our customers do, and have been leading the water industry on driving down leakage, with half as many leaks on average, as any other water company in the UK. Between 2020-2025, we’ll be investing £77 million in reducing leakage, with the aim of reaching world-leading low levels.
“Because we’ve achieved so much already, our job is now harder than ever. We’ve tackled the quick wins, the easy to find leaks, and we’re now in the realms of using the latest technology to help us find much smaller leaks before they’re even visible to the naked eye.”
Anglian Water has also been working towards promoting biodiversity across the region, joining forces with Toadwatch to protect at-risk amphibians in Norfolk while installation of a new 12.5km section of pipeline takes place.
And similar work is being undertaken in Lincolnshire, as well, with staff members installing new camouflaged fencing to help guide local bat populations, while new water pipelines are constructed.
Andrew Weston, part of the company’s ecological team, explained that hedgerows serve as commuting corridors between foraging areas and bats rely on these to find their way when looking for food. In places where these hedgerows have had to be removed, camouflage netting covered in artificial leaves has been installed.
The work being carried out forms part of a larger project to lay hundreds of kilometres of interconnecting pipelines across the region to help prevent water shortages in the future.
The east of England is the driest and most environmentally sensitive part of the UK, seeing a third less rainfall every year than anywhere else in the country. But, because it is also one of the fastest-growing places, if this work doesn’t take place, a water deficit will be seen of 30 million litres a day by 2025.
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