Attendees for LSBUD’s (Linesearch BeforeUdig) Damage Prevention Conference increased by 50%, as 150 delegates from right across the UK’s utility, construction and contractor networks attended the Ricoh Arena to discuss the best ways to keep people and assets safe.
Building on the success of their inaugural Damage Prevention event in 2018, organisers LSBUD, the UK’s national online safe digging service, welcomed delegates and an impressive line-up of speakers from Wales & West Utilities, Amey, Zayo, Openreach and Streetworks UK, amongst others.
In his introduction, LSBUD’s Managing Director, Richard Broome, introduced LSBUD’s second annual Digging Up Britain report; a report designed to share the unparalleled intelligence the organisation has about the excavation activity taking place across Great Britain. A copy of this was given to all delegates and the report is now available to download here.
United Utilities Water’s Network Delivery Director and Streetworks UK Board Member, Kevin Fowlie led the way, speaking on behalf of Streetworks UK, and discussed how we can better integrate data sets, improve customer interaction and develop stronger collaboration between utilities and local authorities. Gerry Mulholland, HSEQ Director at Amey then explained the steps Amey have taken to reduce damages through their ‘Locate, Mark, Avoid’ campaign. Clever use of a professionally produced video, coupled with a powerful internal communications campaign, supports Amey’s intention to benchmark and measure their damage statistics in future. Zayo’s Director of Corporate Communications, Jeremy Thorp, closed the first session by discussing the challenges of achieving Digital Britain and the policies that government could introduce to help (or hinder!) this process.
Otre Moussa, MD of Otrem Engineering flew in from Australia specifically for the event and gave an update on the Australian perspective. In Australia there is a nationalised Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) service and damages are more carefully tracked and reported than they are in the UK. Key messages from this talk are that 95% of damages in Australia are caused by poor planning and 80% of those who cause damage have failed to use the DBYD service.
The conference then broke for an hour of roundtable discussions. Conversations focussed on damage reporting and areas in which the organisations present can improve in both avoiding and reporting damages.
After the lunch break, Stephen Davies, Network Protection Officer at Wales & West Utilities, discussed the ways in which Wales & West are using data to drive down damages to their network. Some of the data they are using has been drawn from the LSBUD searches around their network. Having joined LSBUD in December 2018, Wales & West have seen their search volumes go from 23,000 in 2018 to a remarkable 260,000 in the first 6 months of 2019! Using this rich new data resource, they are comparing incidents on their network with reports issued to see where correlations occur. It will be fascinating to see the results produced by this innovative new service as the year progresses.
Closing the day were two complementary talks from Ellis Catherall of Openreach and Phil Cornforth, representing the Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG). Ellis detailed the impact of Openreach’s internal damage prevention programme which has seen the organisation reduce their own damage on other’s networks over a sustained period. Phil Cornforth explained how a dedicated focus on USAG’s communications has created a sharp rise in engagement on strike avoidance. He also issued a cry for damages data as it is only this that will enable the UK to benchmark and measure the scale and true cost of its strike damages. Anyone wishing to discuss damage data or submit anonymised statistics for their own organisation can contact USAG at: info@utilitystrikeavoidancegroup.org
Summarising the day Richard Broome stated “we are delighted to see a 50% increase in attendance for what is only our second Damage Prevention Conference, illustrating how important this topic is for those who maintain and operate networks and those who wish to work safely. We are very grateful to everyone who came to the event and contributed to such a worthwhile discussion and look forward to an even bigger and better event in June 2020”.
