The 35% reduction at Eagles Meadow, Wrexham’s major shopping centre, was achieved following a campaign last year to reduce consumption across the site.

Speaking to edie, centre manager Kevin Critchley put the fall in water usage down to regular meter readings and the enthusiasm from cleaning and security staff in flagging potential waste.

“Each of the individual shop units in the centre has their own submeter and then we have submeters for other areas like the public toilets, the water feature and the loading bays for example.

“By bringing in a constant review we are able to monitor our consumption – we do readings on all our meters, about 15, which we read every month,” he added.

Staff engagement has been a key factor in reducing the centre’s water usage, allowing management to keep on top of any potential waste areas.

“We’ve also got our cleaning and security staff involved and what we do is keep an eye on the consumption and it allows us to pick up on any major changes in consumption through the meter readings.

“But even more to the point, we have our cleaning and security staff to report incidents like taps that are running or dripping, toilets that are running, or pipes that might be leaking or anywhere there is waste” added Critchley.

When asked about the complexity of reducing water usage at a large retail establishment such as Eagles Meadow, Critchley said it has been a fairly simple process and is “certainly not rocket science”.

“It’s about using as little as you possibly can and reduce the waste by as much as possible. It’s all about constant monitoring,” he added.

Read more on the shopping centre’s water reduction achievements here

Leigh Stringer

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