As part a major refurbishment programme, Lanes Group was recently commissioned to carry out a comprehensive CCTV drainage survey at Bristol Royal Infirmary.
The results – some of the drains are ‘hundreds of years’ old’ – will help the hospital’s estates department plan an £8 m programme to improve the King Edward Building. Drainage engineers from Lanes Group’s Bristol depot have undertaken the detailed survey work.
Since 2011, the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust has spent £86 m refurbishing the BRI site. Keith Farley, assistant director, Estates Projects (interim), said: “Lanes Group has worked well with our teams, and its survey data will be very useful for planning our refurbishment of the KEB; the company will also undertake future drainage maintenance across the site.”
Lanes Group area development manager, Sean Malone, said: “Some structures here date back to at least the 18th century, and we are surveying some drainage assets for the first time since their installation.”
Following the four-day survey, the Lanes team will provide the BRI estates department with a detailed map of the hospital’s drainage system, and HD quality video evidence of its condition, gathered using flexible rod and remote-controlled robotic crawler cameras. Much of the CCTV survey work has been done at night. Access manholes to some drains are located inside hospital buildings, so the CCTV teams have worked inside ‘tents’.
