The location and design for the National Leakage Research and Test Centre (NLRTC) have now been confirmed. The centre will provide a large, secure environment that replicates a real underground water network, supporting the testing of novel solutions to reduce leakage.
The NLRTC will consist of an offline District Metered Area (DMA) and a smaller test rig, known as a sandpit, both of which will be constructed on HR Wallingford’s business park and neighbouring fields in Oxfordshire. Once built, the centre will be operated by a partnership between HR Wallingford and Northumbrian Water with support from WRc, and financed for the first three years by the Ofwat Innovation Fund.
The DMA will comprise a fully scaled, 5km-long, buried water pipeline, with multiple sub-metered areas, leakage simulation bunkers, and a control room enabling automated control capabilities. The sandpit, which will be set up within HR Wallingford’s existing Froude Modelling Hall, will allow water companies and innovators to try out new technology before testing it in the offline DMA area.
Water companies were consulted about the facility’s location, design and specification, and stakeholders reviewed the outline design for the DMA, which was drawn up by WRc and HR Wallingford. Stantec, a global leader in sustainable design and engineering, carried out the detailed design work for the DMA, and has provided a range of interdisciplinary planning and engineering services to support the NLRTC’s planning application.
The partners are aiming to submit a full planning application for the DMA shortly and anticipate that construction will start later this year. Construction is expected to take around nine months, and the team has had initial talks with specialist contractors who could undertake the work.
Once constructed, the facility will be used by innovators, water companies, design stakeholders, technology suppliers, researchers, and academics to experiment and accelerate novel leakage solutions to support the leakage challenge faced in the UK Water sector. It will provide a place to trial and certify technologies for application within the water industry.
