The Water Industry

The water and wastewater industry delivers services universally recognised as essential to the health and economic well-being of society today.

As a model for private-public service provision, the UK water industry is unique and successful. It is regulated as a public utility but funded and managed as a private business.

During the past 15 years it has continually improved water quality and services, and met environmental aims (such as cleaning up beaches and rivers).

And while achieving these objectives, it has delivered satisfactory returns to debt and equity investors and invested £50 billion while directly employing more than 27,000 people.

Indirectly it provides jobs for many more, in activities as diverse as construction, environmental consultancy, plant engineering and information technology.

• In the UK, the industry supplies services to more than 20 million properties
• it has a turnover of more than £7 billion a year
• assets include 1,000 reservoirs, over 2,500 water treatment works and 9,000 sewage treatment works.

More than 700,000 km of mains and sewers are buried beneath the ground – enough to stretch to the moon and back, or a distance 200 times greater than the UK’s motorway network.

There is no doubt that privatization … enabled the industry to undertake a huge programme of environmental improvements.

However, it is not just privatisation ‘per se’ but the philosophy of effective regulation that underlines the water industry’s success today.

It may not be appropriate to replicate its precise structures to other places, but the general principles of regulation as applied to both the public and private sector in the UK have been shown to work and to deliver affordable, safe drinking water.

The Source Report – Ernst & Young

Orchid – partners in the Water Industry
A crucial component of all water and waste treatment works is the Works Operating Manual (WOM).

Under stringent regulations, water plants cannot enter service without a completed WOM.

Orchid specialises in WOMs for the water industry, creating manuals to BS4884 (specification for technical manuals).

The company’s experienced technical authors have been producing high quality technical publications for 40 years.

The WOM is often the main reference used by engineers to commission water plants.

Orchid director Colin Clare said:
The WOM is a key part of the testing and quality checks that ensure a water plant is ready for business.

This millennium there has already been tremendous improvements to the quality of bathing water off British coasts.

Orchid’s technical publications department has covered the entire watercycle:

• Once collected - such as from rivers, natural underground basins, reservoirs - water is treated, then pumped into huge tanks to flow along mains to customers’ taps.
• Wastewater undergoes a series of treatment processes where water is separated from the waste it carries. These processes must comply with European Union directives. The water is then safely returned to the environment via rivers and seas.

Orchid director Colin Clare said:
We at Orchid like to think our technical expertise in this industry has helped play a significant part in helping ensure a better future for our communities.

+44 (0) 1763 244007 solutions@orchidinfo.co.uk Orchid will be pleased to advise on the most suitable solution to meet your needs.

Find out more about Orchid's capabilities. Sewerage and Wastewater Treatment System