Depending upon whose figures you believe, there are between 1.5 million and 2 million kilometres of utility services running underground in the UK. They consist of electricity cables, water pipes, sewage, telecoms, gas pipes, fibre optics, and more. Many of them also need to be repaired, replaced, or even taken out completely, and this means that there are constant works going on all over the UK to excavate and deal with them.

In fact, it is estimated, although there are no mandatory reporting systems in place, that there are some 4 million excavations each year up and down the country, and they result in some 60,000 unintentional strikes of services that have either not been recorded correctly or not recorded at all, when a utility or local authority is digging into the ground.

What is worse is that many of these accidental hits could have been avoided if only the utility or contractor carrying out the work had carried out a full survey of the area before commencing. In fact, the HSE states bluntly that if you do not know for certain that there is nothing where you are going to dig, then you should assume that there are buried services there.

Part of the problem is that many excavation works are undertaken at short notice in order to carry out repairs to services that have failed or been damaged. Water companies, in particular, have to repair leaks as quickly as they can, and this often results in cutting corners.

Not only are records often incomplete or incorrect, but over the years they have been changed from perhaps drawings to microfiches to computer records, and this may caused errors to have crept in, while changes to nearby roads or buildings can also skew the original descriptions. Add to that the fact that the quality of documentation in many instances is surprisingly poor, and one can begin to see why these unintentional cable strikes can occur.

Indeed, one plant hire manager was quoted a couple of years ago as saying that “Occasionally you’ve got secondary gas pipelines laid in parallel alongside or underneath old pipelines, and the old pipelines are on the records, but the new pipelines have never been added. It’s staggering, but this does happen.”

No Mandatory Way Of Keeping Records

Not only are records often inaccurate or even non-existent, but there is no mandatory way of keeping them in the first place. Different utilities and local authorities will keep records in different ways.

Between 2012 and 2017, the HSE received no less than 6,746 reports of incidents involving pipelines and the escape of flammable substances liable to cause harm. During the same period, there were 318 reports of injuries, including fatalities, that were the result of underground electricity cable strikes. However, the actual number of such incidents is likely to be considerably greater because there is no legal obligation to report strikes of underground services. In addition, while most companies will keep in-house records, there is a suspicion that many contractors cover up such incidents in order to avoid all of the investigation, costs, and delays, and to avoid being blamed for poor practice.

All of this is why it is essential to carry out a thorough cable avoidance survey of any area where excavation works are to be carried out using the CAT and Genny. Certainly, the work may be urgent, but nonetheless the safety of workers – and any passing public – should come first. 

Furthermore, not only is it essential to carry out a thorough survey, but it is also necessary for operatives to receive specialist training in the use of the CAT and Genny for cable avoidance. They are without doubt sophisticated pieces of equipment and they can do a very good job, but even then, they have certain limitations. This is why we provide specialist training the use of the CAT and Genny at Sygma Solutions.

Our team has over 100 years of combined experience in the use of cable locators and detection techniques, and our courses start with a one-day training course through to a five-day Utility Surveyor course which leads to a qualification enabling a CSCS card, and which is approved by The Survey Association.