Water industry unites on a night to remember

The first ever Water Industry Achievement Awards took place at IWEX 2007 last month. The night was a spectacular success, and a chance to recognise the outstanding efforts of companies across the UK in the past 12 months.


The first ever Water Industry Achievement Awards (WIAA) got off to a flying start last month as about 250 guests descended on the ICC in central Birmingham.

The event was organised by sister journals WET News and Water & Waste Treatment, published by Faversham House Group.

Following a champagne reception, WET News & WWT publisher Angela Himus got the evening under way and outlined the reasoning behind the awards scheme – to recognise the effort which the water industry is making to provide an efficient service to customers.

Before the eagerly anticipated awards were announced, comedian extraordinaire Michael McIntyre had guests convulsing with laughter. And Scottish Water and Yorkshire Water were singled out to bear the brunt of many of his jokes.

Southern Water and 4Delivery were ecstatic when they scooped the Partnership Initiative of the Year for how well they have worked together to deliver £750M of improvement works. Flownetix picked up the Innovative Technology Award, sponsored by Polypipe Water Management Solutions, for its ultrasonic 300 Series low-cost, low-power, non-moving-part, consumer water meter.

Enpure walked away with the Best Information & Communications Campaign of the Year award because of its communication skills in dealing with local residents affected by the work at Boughton Water Treatment Works for Dee Valley Water.

“It’s good to give something back,” summed up Durapipe’s reaction to winning the Farrer Consulting-sponsored award for Sustainable Development. The award was given for its work with humanitarian enterprise Bushproof on a project to build low-maintenance hand pumps to provide the people of Madagascar with clean drinking water.

Yorkshire Water says it was “so rewarding – fantastic” to win the People Initiative of the Year for its Leading the Way initiative, which involves raising awareness among staff and contractors of how work on highways can be a major problem for the disabled.

Earlier in the day, Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water team-mates Danny Hunt and Peter Haslock had won the IWO Drilling & Tapping Tyco Trophy at IWEX 2007. At the awards evening, they were crowned IWEX 2007 Drilling & Tapping Champions.

The last award of the night was for Outstanding Individual Contribution to the Water Industry, sponsored by Enpure. This went to Halcrow chairman Tony Allum.

Unfortunately, he was unable to attend the evening – he had a prior engagement

at Buckingham Palace. (No, seriously.) But Halcrow’s Peter Robery was on hand to collect the trophy on Tony’s behalf.

WET News and WWT would like to thank the Award sponsors – Enpure, Farrer Consulting and Polypipe Water Management Solutions – for their support, and the judges who had the difficult task of picking the winners. Most importantly, we would like to thank all those companies that took the time and trouble to enter the Water Industry Achievement Awards.

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