Young, Howart
Experience & Education # 1972 Southampton
The West Wilts Water Board was set up in 1960, and among the many problems facing the Board were the following:
- Large areas of subsoil composed of aggressive Kimmeridge and Oxford clays whch were causing repeated corrosion failures of spun iron mains laid only 100 years before, aggravated by seasonal ground movements which tended to fracture asbestos cement pipes of otherwise good corrosion resistance.
- Two areas supplied by sources of very low pH (5.9) with heavily tuberculated mains and services of inadequate diameter, and in many areas of very long lengths.
- Scattered rural communities situated in nonaggressive soil areas where no public piped supplies existed but which urgently required supplies at minimum cost.
- Other rural areas with long lengths of 2in and smaller mains rendered inadequate by milk-cooling demands and housing development.
- Large numbers of houses under construction in urban areas requiring a large programme of main and service laying hampered by lack of skilled main or service layers.
Plastics mains and services have made amaterial contribution to the solving of these problems.
