Welcome to the APM Podcast. I'm your host Emma DeVito.
I'm the editor of APM's Core 2 Journal project.
The question I'd like to put to our guest today is what's it
like to get a once in a generation critical
infrastructure programme off the ground?
What's it like to work on a major project in an area water
supply that is garnering so much public and media attention?
Here to give me the fly in the wall view is John McNeil, Head
of Programme Delivery at United Utilities, who's helping to lead
the £3 billion horse water aqueduct resilience programme in
Northwest England. Welcome, John.
Thanks for joining me. Morning, Emma.
Thanks for having me. Well, it's a pleasure.
Let's begin with the basics when you tell me a bit about the
project and its scope, and perhaps what's making it
particularly unique. Absolutely.
So the Horse Horse Water Aqueduct Resilience Programme or
HARP as we as we fondly know it as it's been a project that's
been running for about 7 years now and the project is all about
addressing a very immediate and real resilience need.
So the the horsewater reservoir as shown behind me on the on the
photograph was built just you're.
Not actually there. I'm not actually there.
No, I'm not on site today. I'd love to be in that lovely
weather. So the reservoir was built in
the early sort of 1900s. And what connects the reservoir
to the main conurbations of the northwest being sort of
Manchester, is the horsewater aqueduct.
And this aqueduct was built between 1930s and 1950s to allow
the passage of water to effectively sustain the
industrial growth around Manchester and the Manchester
area. So a really, really important
aqueduct, an asset. It runs for 110 kilometres or
about 80 miles across an absolute variety of of, of
terrain and different areas. It served us fantastically for
70 years. The engineering that went into
it is just brilliant and it's served as well, but it's now
beginning to get to the end of its asset life.
And so the project is all about looking at effectively replacing
the key, the key sections of that to sustain this this water
supply for many years to come. OK.
Thanks John for that overview. And So what you have you been
involved right from the start, so from 7 years ago?
No, I haven't. So I joined the project about 3
years ago, just at a stage when the project was beginning to go
out into the procurement phase to look at suppliers and a
supply chain network to to deliver this.
OK. And what are your role and
response? What's your role and
responsibilities right now for the programme?
So my experience throughout my career started out with
engineering and I've moved into a variety of different roles in
my career. But the, the area I've, I spent
most of my career in his project delivery, project management,
programme management. So I was brought in three years
ago to effectively get the, the project ready, match ready, if
you like, for when this project moves into the construction
phase. So my role currently is the Head
of Programme Delivery for United Utilities and I'm also the named
representative under the commercial contracts we have
with the with the supply chain. Could you give me a bit more
about what work is actually involved, because I'm quite
interested in the history of this.
It is a kind of, you know, Britain, England is full of
infrastructure that has been was built in Victorian times or, you
know, a quite a long time ago. And certainly renewing critical
infrastructure like this is is going to only increase as the
decades go on. So like, I'm sure you've been
into the system. Like can you give us an idea of
what it's like and what work will actually be done to renew
it, if that's not too of an obvious question to ask?
Yeah, no, it's fine. So as I mentioned before, the
as, as the Northwest was growing and as Manchester was growing as
a city back in the early 1900's, the needs to supply water was,
was was huge for population and industrial growth.
So, so the lakes were an obvious place for storage and collection
of water. Then of course that water then
has to be transported down to to Manchester.
So the Horse Water Aqueduct was constructed between 1933 and
1955 between the two world wars where resources were scarce,
manpower was scarce. And it was constructed through a
range of through, through geography, through hills where
we where the team and the project were able to tunnel
through the hills and through sections of pipe work as well
where there's valleys. So what this ended up with was
a, an 80 mile aqueduct that's made-up of tunnels and pipe work
sections and, and and wells that effectively conveyed a huge
amount of water to allow the growth of Manchester.
And the absolute fantastic thing about the the the the aqueduct
when it was built is that the water runs by gravity.
So taking that amount of water from the north of our region
down to the South of the region without a single KJ of energy,
it's just a fantastic achievement, fantastic
engineering and it's served us really well.
But towards the kind of 20 tens, we as a company began to get
concerned about some aspects of its condition and we were able
to actually get an opportunity to isolate the the aqueduct and
go in and have a look at it. Now even doing that was a huge
task organisationally because if you can imagine the Northwest of
England as a human body, the kind of heart of that body is
the lakes where a lot of our water is stored.
But the, the horsewater aqueduct is like the main aorta.
So this is the main conduit that is distributing the water out to
to a lot of the northwest communities.
So to suddenly take that out of service to go in and have a look
at it and inspect it, it's kind of doing like open heart surgery
on, on a patient. So an awful lot of enabling
where it's had to be done to just allow us to go in and have
a look into this aqueduct. We've now done that two times,
once in 2013 and once in 2016. And we're able to go in and have
a look round and give it a bit of a poke and a prod.
And what, what we found in those asset inspections is that this
this asset is deteriorating, not imminently, but it definitely
needs some, some intervention in the next, in the next few years.
And that those inspections really are what drove the need
to do the replacement of the of the horse water aqueduct.
And that's effectively the the what gave rise to the project.
So what will you be doing exactly to to renew it and to
make it resilient and, you know, Fit for the Fit for use now and
for the coming decades? So of of the of the the 80 miles
of of of Horzaltrakodo that exists today, probably about
half of that is in tunnel sections.
So these are deep, effectively pipes or tunnels that have been
hewn through the rock of of the hills in the northwest of
England. Some of them are kind of 304
hundred metres deep. The diameter is about two to
three metres. So these are large kind of
tunnels and they're the sections that we're most concerned about.
So what we'll be doing on the HARP is effectively going in and
creating brand new tunnels to replace those tunnels that are
beginning to degrade. So effectively HARP is a huge
civil engineering tunnelling project.
Well, as we take on to replace those six separate tunnel
sections that make up about like I say half of that sort of 80
mile run. It's kind of awesome what people
achieved, you know, what the engineers achieved in the
1930's. The way you describe it, it just
must have been back breaking work and so dangerous at the
time. Do you feel that kind of sense
of history with a project like this?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you look back at
some of the black and white images, it's like long before
PPE, long before modern construction practises.
It's just breathtaking. I mean, what what these guys did
effectively trying to create a tunnel through just solid rock,
effectively using dynamite, you know, drilling the little holes
into the rock, filling them with dynamite, lighting the fuse and
stepping back and letting this thing blow itself open.
And then slowly then creating this this aqueduct, this tunnel
by using fairly rudimentary sort of support systems and concrete
forming systems was absolutely incredible.
What they did back then and what they've achieved.
And as I said before, to be able to build all that to such a
level of accuracy that the water can flow completely by gravity
for that that distance is, is an incredible feat.
And the feeling around the project now is we're in a
fantastic position to to replicate what our forefathers
did, but but make it even better as well.
We want this new aqueduct to operate again under gravity, but
be completely, you know, suitable for carrying water and
also to last even longer if we can.
We're looking for this new tunnel suite of tunnels to last
over 120 years. So there's a real feel that this
is a project that will endure. It will be.
It'll certainly help live me, my children and possibly their
children and their children again.
So it's a multi generational asset that we're delivering
here. And the project does have that
kind of special feel about it, a real pleasure to be on on on a
project of such sort of scale and, and like I say, once in a
generation opportunity really. Is that that must motivate you
as a kind of project leader to that idea of legacy and working
on something that is so critical?
100 percent, 100%. Like I said before, we, we
deliver a lot of projects within United Utilities, but this one's
always kind of stood out as being a really special project.
And, and even working day-to-day with the project team, we talk a
lot about legacy. We talk a lot about projects
like this not come along very often.
And yes, there's a huge sense of like an obligation to do your
best on any, any project on any, on any scheme and in any role,
particularly on this, this one. It just feels that little bit
special. It's it's a feeling that sits
around the project, which is great.
The motor face is definitely, definitely there to deliver
something that that will endure and like I say, will last for
many, many generations. But I think the other aspect of
the project that really motivates me is what we can do
while we're delivering the project.
So we talk about legacy in terms of what we'll leave behind and
what we'll leave for many generations to enjoy.
But there's also an opportunity in the eight years that we're
constructing this project have a massive positive impact on
communities, on careers, on education.
So one of the aspects of HARP I'm really proud about is our
sort of commitments to social value, what we're looking to do
during the construction of the project as well.
What can you tell us a bit about that?
So I guess you'd be creating a number of jobs in the local area
and training people up. And is this also a platform for
training people up on this kind of infrastructure renewal so
that if, you know, if and when this happens again within the
UK, then we've got people here who can sort of be ready to give
their expertise? Yeah, 100%.
So, so we, when we went out to market, one of the things we're
really keen to do is engage with a supply chain that we're as, as
passionate about this aspect of the project as we were.
And, and social value is a really important thing to, to
unite utilities and it absolutely flows through into
the vision and values of of HARP as well.
So some of our ambitions on social value where we've looked
at small and medium enterprise spend, we're looking to commit
at least 25% of our SME spend in the local area with local
businesses and that can really make a difference on HARP.
At the peak, we're looking to have Circuit 1500 employees
across the various sites working on the project.
And again, the commitment to that is that we'll have at least
30% of that will be again from local communities and, and, and
their local areas. And one that I'm really keen to
have in there and really proud to have is 5% of the workforce
at any one time will be apprentices.
So that can be a kind of 60 apprentices a year that were
taken from local colleges, local schools, local communities, and
giving them hopefully a step into construction and that they
can use on harp and obviously then take tape with them into
the rest of their career. So that investment in
communities, skills, education, it's, it's a huge part of the
project and it's one that I'm really keen to kind of lead and
keep, keep the fire lit under the whole, the whole of the
eight years we're going to be building this.
How much is climate change mitigation part of some you know
the programme does it affect what you do?
Is what you know how, how is that that risk sort of thought
about and dealt with on on the programme?
Yeah. No, it definitely has featured
in our thinking and it factors into the programme in in
probably at least two or three ways.
So one of the things we've been really keen is during the
construction phase of of the project is to invoke a keen eye
on our impact on the environment.
So tunnelling is a big civil engineering endeavour.
He cannot get away from that requires big machines, you know,
shifting larger large amounts of material.
But that said, there are things you can do to to minimise the
impact of where that material goes.
So we've been really proactive in looking for local areas to
dispose on that one, to cut down the carbon footprints of
transporting the material to around the place, but also
putting it to beneficial use. So we've been able to speak to
local quarries or local land owners that might be able to use
the material. We've also got some pretty
stretching KPIs on energy use. So how some of the tunnel boring
machines themselves, which are huge power users, how they'll
actually be powered has also factored into our thinking.
And we've come up with some quite iterative ways of looking
at the least damaging or the least impacting ways for power
use. So definitely while the
project's been building, while project's been built, that's
been in front of our mind, but also longer term.
So, so water and water scarcity is, you know, a real issue, not
just in the UK, but across the world.
And when you're building an asset like heart that's going to
last for potentially 120 years or more, thinking about its
future use is just as important as think about it's the need for
it today. So what we've been able to do is
try and future proof as much as we can the assets.
So in terms of the size of the existing horsal Tricroduct,
it's, it's about 2 1/2, three metres, 3 1/2 metres in
diameter. And going forward, we're going
to make that bigger, not that that carrying capacity is needed
today, but it might well be in the future.
So again, the the trick there is obviously making sure we've got
enough flexibility to future proof the asset in case we
haven't needed to shift the water around in different ways
or shift different volumes, but not burdening today's customers
with that as a cost. And that's that kind of balance
we've been we've factored in, in the sort of strategic approach
on HARP. OK, thanks.
And the programme is working on the new delivery model which is
called the direct procurement for customers DPC model.
And I think this programme is a Pathfinder for that.
So can you tell us what that means exactly for people who
might not be, who who might not know?
So in the water industry, all water companies are have an
economic regulator called Off Watt off water very much there
to ensure that the water companies deliver in the most
efficient and effective way. And probably 5 or 6 years ago
off what looked into various different ways of delivering
projects and they wanted to trial something that was a
little bit different and that's where DPC came from.
So DPC stands for direct procurement for customers and
what it invites water companies to do is effectively not only
engage organisations to design and build assets, but also to
design, build them, finance them, maintain them and in some
case operate them as well. And that's that's the sort of
procurement approach that that the half will be delivered.
Under what are the benefits that this model hopes to bring to the
delivery of the programme? The idea behind DPC is to, as I
said before, make projects more innovative and efficient.
And the way it intends to do that is look at different
sources of finance for projects. It's looking to attract
different different parties, different delivery partners that
might not normally have been attracted to the UK water
industry, which with them then brings innovation.
And that's certainly what we've seen on HARP in terms of the
interest across the supply chain.
We're now in a position where we've awarded the contracts to
what we call a cap or a competitively appointed
contractor. So that's the the special
purpose vehicle that will actually deliver the scheme.
And they are entities that certainly we in United Utilities
have have not used before. So it's definitely seeing some
fresh names in and around the sector.
I'd like to ask you about stakeholders and who the
stakeholders are that you deal with and United, am I correct?
United Utilities, does it own all of the infrastructure that
you're working on is that? It it does, yeah, it does.
So all of our assets are owned by United Utilities.
This will be the first asset that we've have ever delivered
whereby effectively it's owned by a another for a period of
time and that's a feature of the the DPC model.
So as I mentioned before, the, the, the, the DPC model allows
effectively a new entity called the CAP, a competitively
appointed provider to design, build, finance, operate and
maintain the asset. So once the construction of HARP
is complete after sort of eight years, they will actually own
the asset for another 25 years. And as effectively you, you and
its customer base pay off the the initial sort of financial
outlay and then that asset comes into our asset base fully.
Who are the most critical stakeholders that you're
engaging with and what challenges have you been able to
overcome and any advice you'd pass on to professionals working
in in, you know, in in a similar way or affected by similar
issues? Yeah, so it's a great question.
I mean the, the, the stakeholder reach on a, on a programme, the
size of HARP is, is issues as you'd imagine.
Key stakeholders are obviously our customers and we're doing
this for our customers. Two and a half million of our
seven million 7,000,000 customer base will benefit from this
project. So it it'll impact from a
beneficial point of view a huge proportion of our customers, but
quite a small number of our customers will actually be
impacted in the construction. But they're the ones that really
have in the front of our minds as a, as a key stakeholder.
Obviously, we have our industry regulator off Watts.
This is their first DPC out of the blocks.
They're hugely keen to see how it goes though.
So they have all eyes on the project and we work very closely
with those guys. We now have our supply chain,
our partners in place. So we have the cap, as we said
before, the competitively appointed provider.
And we've got another body called the ITA, an independent
technical adviser who also sits as part of the HARP supply
chain. So really key stakeholders
there. We have key stakeholders in the
local communities with MPs, local councillors, local
community leaders. So it's a, it's a vast array as
you can imagine. And it's a real effort to keep
all of the stakeholders at the right level of being informed,
engaged and communicated with, consulted with.
So it's a huge range. But one of the big challenges we
faced on HAARP was in the, in the kind of relatively early
phases of planning where we, we were really keen to go out and
speak to particularly the customers and the local
communities about the project, about the impacts it might have
about what the what the project will look and feel like.
And normally we'd go about that by take, you know, doing sort of
town hall sessions or consultation sessions face to
face. And that was the root and the
tactic we adopted on HAARP. But bearing in mind the huge
geographical spread, you know, the 80 miles kind of top to
bottom, that was a huge endeavour.
And that was all going really well.
But then COVID hit. So this was around 2020.
So that really sort of stymied our plans to to get out there
and speak to people face to face.
So for the first time, certainly in in United Utilities history,
we took that public consultation online.
It sounds old hat now because everything's done online, but
back then it was kind of quite a new to us.
And we held online drop in sessions, online surgeries,
online briefings, presentations, and we didn't know how it was
going to go right. But to be honest, it was
fantastic. It meant, perversely, we reached
far more people than we ever would have done doing it the old
fashioned way. And we listened.
I think one of the key lessons I've certainly picked up from On
Harp is listen, you know, listen more and speak less.
And we got an absolute wealth of feedback from the communities
about what they were worried about, what they wanted to see,
what they didn't want to see, how they thought it could be
delivered better in a less impactful way.
And because we did that early enough in the project, we were
able to take some of those gems and actually like incorporate
them into the scheme design, how we're going to deliver it, how
we're going to constrain the supply chain when they deliver
it. So that stakeholder engagement
with the customers wasn't just there to get buy into the
project, which is normally the step, the aim.
It was, it was that, but it was also to get steerage on the
project and allow that to to shape the project.
So a lot of effort was put into it around that time in ways that
we never imagined doing, but it was really, really successful.
And it's actually our largest public consultation we've ever
done for any project across United Utilities and it's really
even now bearing fruit. Could you explain to me exactly
where you are now on the programme and what you're
working on right now? Sure.
So, so we managed to close the procurement process at the back
end of last summer. That was a lengthy process, but
hugely rewarding to get to contract award or to call it
financial close in ADPC setting and that happened last August.
So a really great milestone for the project and, and such an
effort, a huge amount of effort from the project team that was
fantastic. So that was kind of seven or
eight months ago now. So we're now beginning to get
into what is an 8 year construction programme.
We're in year 1. So a lot of the folks in the
last sort of 6 to 8 months have been on mobilisation of the the
new supply chain, getting them set up, getting them inducted
into what we're trying to deliver, new systems, new
people. We've Co located in a sort of
new sort of programme office. So we're all sat together, which
has been an absolute, absolute coup in terms of sort of
promoting collaboration. How many people are based there
do you think? So we've probably got over 100
people, maybe 100 to 130 people Co located.
And when I, when we first moved into this, our office, which is
in kind of the city centre of Manchester, which got a nice
link to obviously this is the community largely that this
project will be, will be serving.
I'm sat there thinking, there's no way we're going to fill this
office. This is huge.
And within six months we've outgrown it beyond all belief.
So we're actually looking to open some other offices now and
some of the sort of depots to sort of accommodate the growing
team. But what, what that office has
allowed us though, is to bring the whole of the programme
together. So we're sat in there as the, as
the kind of appointee for the scheme, as United Utilities.
We've sat with the CAP who's an organisation called Cascade
Infrastructure, they have their main contractor, an organisation
called Strabag, Strabag UK and we've also got the independent
Technical Shorer who sat with us who's children in Townsend and
OTBE Engineering. So lots of different
organisations but all sat together for two or three days a
week. Yes, we meet and we have our
formal meetings and our update meetings, but the power of
sitting together are the corridor conversations, the kind
of, you know, informal interactions that you have that
just help really Foster and build those relationships.
So having that set up has been a real, a real, a real game
changer in my mind. It's really got the the
programme out of the blocks. Was that something that you that
United Utilities had always wanted to put in place for a
project like this? Because it is a new way of doing
things. So I'm wondering how what the
approach to managing a programme like this would be and how it's,
and now it's different to, to maybe previous programmes you've
worked on. So I mean, I'm just here hearing
collaboration, but I don't know what was kind of at the
forefront of people's minds to in their approach to running
this programme, the construction freight phase at least.
Yeah, it's a good question, to be honest.
We, we really wanted this as an organisation, but we didn't want
to force people into it. So the way we actually procured
heart was actually, we left it open.
We said to our prospective partners, if you would like to
work together and have a collaborative programme office,
we'll be in it with you. You know, let's do it.
But if you don't, you don't necessarily have to.
But if you do, please make space for us kind of thing.
And what was really pleasing is our preferred bidder and now our
successful CAP really wanted that too.
And so it was kind of a we, we dangled, I guess we fished for
it and, and, and we got what we're hoping for really.
But that's been a real sort of Energizer to, to bring people
together like you're saying. And things, some of the things
I've seen that really have helped that is it might seem a
little bit twee and I know most projects have this, but we spent
quite a lot of time in those early weeks and months
developing our common sort of project vision, project values,
which is the first kind of test of everyone working together,
right? Can you just come up with
something that you can all sort of centre around?
And, and we did do that and we have that now and it's public
and it's available and, and what we don't want it to be and it
isn't, it's something that just sits on the wall that nobody
ever looks at. People do talk about it.
So when we're in meetings and we're talking about issues and
we see behaviours that aren't quite right, we draw it back to
the project vision because that sets out exactly what this
project is trying to achieve. And I just don't think you would
have got that cohesion around that kind of central idiom if
you'd been sat in all over the world or in separate offices in
the UK. So I'm a big believer in that
sort of Co location aspect. I'm interviewing you for this
podcast because you wrote a really interesting feature for
the Summer 2026 issue project and there was some, there were
two things in the feature that you mentioned that I wanted to
pick up. The first was that you said your
instinct has always been to seek clarity, define the problem,
analyse the options, land on the optimal solution.
And the more senior people I speak to in project management,
the more clarity, simplicity and a kind of coherent vision seems
to matter a lot. Can make the difference between
a project that's OK and one that's highly successful, I bet.
So I'm keen to pin you down a bit more now I've got you here
for you before you go and jump, jump into that reservoir behind
you. Hi inside Lake.
Could you tell me a bit more about your clarity and how
important that is to you as a as a programme leader?
I guess when in my mind when you're dealing with a single.
So if you perhaps as an engineer, I remember in the
early parts of my career when you're dealing with A1 specific
pro problem, say it's or an issue, it's relatively closed,
it's relatively narrow. It's kind of 1 dimensional.
It's, it can be 1 dimensional, relatively simple and clear.
But on a project like HAARP has taught me and other projects
before that is project programmes at scale, that
certainty is, is elusive. It, it just isn't there.
It's, it's the old Vuka world that we live in.
The noise is louder, the issues and more numerous.
The agendas are wider, it's more diverse, So what was once A1
dimensional issue is now something that's far more
complex. There's technical aspects,
there's planning, there's finance, there's community,
there's risk, there's schedule, there's just a lot more going on
and it can be overwhelming. So from an engineering mindset
it can easily, it can easily be overwhelming for you.
But what I've kind of learnt is the same sort of principles can
be applied and, and do apply. And it sounds obvious, but it it
is just breaking it into those chunks that make it more
manageable. And yes, they interconnect.
So the technical chunk may interconnect with the planning
chunk, which interconnects with finance and the community and
they all have interdependencies. But if you can organise yourself
and your team in a way that addresses each chunk and just
make each area's life, I guess, as simple and as clear as
possible, that just allows people to crack on.
But the real magic is effectively bringing that
together and making sure that they stay connected.
Yes, you were doing your bit, but you also need to know how
your bit perhaps interacts with this bit over here and how that
then changes this bit over here. So it's really important I've
been given that clarity at kind of chunk level, if you like, or
work stream level to bring people together.
Now I meet with my team once a week, every Friday morning to do
exactly that. What's happened this week?
What's happening in your world that might impact someone else's
world? And we regularly have team
scrums as well, again, just to make sure people can understand
their interconnectivity and people can almost have that read
across as to what's happening. So big projects are inherently
complex. Like I said, that clarity and
simplicity can be lost. But there is a way, I believe,
of bringing that kind of rigour to it that simplifies what
you're asking of each part of the team.
But if the magic, as it says, is making sure you keep them
connected so people don't sort of drift off into their own,
it's their own areas. That's interesting.
Also something I'm thinking about as you were telling me
that was you have people from different organisations working
closely together and each organisational team has their
own culture. So how do you go about in
skating the kind of over overarching culture for a
project like this? How do you establish principles?
Is it formal or is it just info? This is the way we do things and
you lead by example I think. I think that's really
interesting to get your kind of first hand expertise from that.
Yes, it's a great question. It's something we've spent a lot
of time on, like I said in the last six months on Harper as
we're mobilised because I was really big on making sure that
we can galvanised the new parties and the new
organisations as we move into project award around something
that unites us. But I think to suddenly say we
want you all to now adopt the harp culture and that's the only
culture you'll ever have. It's just like it's naive and
it's not going to work. So I think in minds, in my
mindset, the way we sort of pitched it to our various
partners is that you will all come with your own
organisational culture. Like United Utilities has one,
Strabike will have 1, Cascade will have one, turn in towns and
we'll have one. And we're not asking you to lose
that because you can't. It's just, you know, you'll
always have that kind of home organisational way of doing
things. But what we want is a layer on
top of that which is unique to HARP.
So let's figure out what it is that unites us on a programme of
this scale. What lights our fires?
What are we here to do? What can, what sort of
behaviours and values can we can we hang our hat on and you make
something that's unique to the programme that doesn't then
decry everybody else's home culture.
They'll always be there, right? But what is it that makes U.S.
special on that? That's what I was mentioned
before about just even the vision of values bit.
It just gives you that line of connectivity across and you can
then start to build relationships on and collaborate
around. So I don't think you can ever
completely wipe everybody's old world away.
Like the old men in black, you press the button and they've
also forgotten and they they get reborn into a new project
culture. I think you have to overlay
what's already there with something that's that's unique
and special for for what you're trying to achieve.
You must feel under a considerable amount of pressure,
not least because it's a Pathfinder programme, but also
the level of public and governmental scrutiny and water
projects at the moment. I mean, it's just in the
headlines and there's a lot of strong sentiment about what
needs to change in this country to clean up water and give us
what we need. Is that what bearing does that
have on the project as well? Yeah.
Look, yes, you're absolutely right.
The, the, the, the, the water companies and the water sectors
and the huge amount of scrutiny at the moment.
And that's felt within United Utilities as well.
United Tools is looking to invest over sort of £13 billion
over the next five years in as part of what we call the big
Northwest upgrade. And that effectively to do many
things. But a lot of that is around
cleaning up rivers and seas. And it's the biggest investment
in in the Northwest for over 100 years.
So there's an awful lot going on.
And how does that impact Harp? Well, hugely.
I mean all of that work that will be carried out will have an
impact on our customers bills. All of the work that will be
carried out on HARP will have an impact on our customers bills
and there's almost a moral duty on all of us to deliver HARP as
efficiently as possible to minimise that impact.
With the cost of living crisis and everything else going on, we
have a position of responsibility and influence to
make sure this project is delivered as efficiently as
possible to minimise what people are paying.
So I feel personally duty bound to kind of work in the best
interests of our customers every day.
And that's, that's something else a lot of the team feel as
well. So, so yeah, there's a lot of
scrutiny on the sector, but we can do something about that to
to sort of make that make that better and a more palatable sort
of thing we deliver. And does it then inform the kind
of accountability and transparency in a project like
this? You know, not it.
It's about just being open with what's going on and honest about
saying, not saying, not in any way saying that you wouldn't be.
But it's almost a counter what's happened in the past by the
water companies or whatever is it.
Is it really? Does that inform the culture of
the project as well? Yeah, it does.
There's, there's an awful lot of scrutiny on water companies more
generally like, like I said, so and the flip side of that is, is
to effectively, like I say, adopt A more transparent way of
working. So a great example of this
slightly outside the heart, but with United Utilities is that
every day now we publish our, our CSO, which is our, sorry,
our combined sewer overflow activations on a map, you can go
on it, you can find your nearest overflow.
You can see if it's activated or not.
It's completely out there in the public domain in the public
interest. And people can see when projects
are delivered, how it improves and impacts that situation.
And the similarity on HARP is, is the sense that the level of
regulatory scrutiny and sharing of information with our
regulator is, is kind of off the scale.
One, because of the size of HARP and, and what's riding on it.
And secondarily because it is this this new delivery model of
what really key to see how it goes.
They want to take that learning forward.
So there's not a week or a kind of month that goes by that I'm
not asked or the team are not asked to go and present how
things are going, where the numbers are up to where the
programme up to how, how things are kind of transpiring.
And we have every quarter a very open, we call it a quarterly
liaison committee where we speak to offer about how all aspects
of the project are, are sort of developing.
So almost everything we do on HARP is, is shared pretty openly
with our sort of regulator and with the the broader
stakeholders as well. I'm going to go rewind back to
the second point, which I wanted to ask you about, which you
wrote about in the feature which really grabbed my attention was
that you wrote that your biggest personal shift has been going
from problem solver to systems steward.
And I really love that. And I wonder when you're working
on a hugely complex projects programme like this, that this,
this idea of systems steward is a really valuable one and one
that perhaps might only increase in the futures projects as
collaboration increases. And you know, we live in a, like
you say, a VUCA world, but can you tell me a bit more about,
about that sort of personal shift?
You know, what is the systems student?
How does that work for you on a project like this?
Yeah, Oh, sure, sure. So it's again, I guess it goes
back to the origins of my career being in engineering.
I've I've really pushed myself in my career.
And again, this would be something I'd, I'd advise others
to do who are, who are perhaps setting out in theirs is to, if
you possibly can take the opportunity to broaden yourself,
push yourself into different roles, different areas of
learning. So I've been an engineer, I've
also worked in design management, I've worked in
commercial management, I've worked in project and programme
management, and I've worked kind of in operational frontline and,
and maintenance. And I think having been
fortunate enough to move around in those different roles, the by
product of that is it's allowed me to kind of see the bigger
picture. And what I mean by that is, you
know, a decision made in an engineering world can have a
massive impact on the assets that someone then operates and
maintains for the rest of their life.
So that helped me to really start to understand this
system's thinking. You know, everything's
interlinked and, and unfortunately, the role,
sometimes you can only ever see the bit to your left and the bit
to your right. But to have the opportunity to
see that bigger picture is, is really important.
And I think working on hard has allowed me to apply that because
leading the team from AUU perspective, you know what?
I know that bigger picture and I know the history of the asset.
I know what it does. I know the criticality of it.
I can. So I know the commercial
construct construct. I can see how the DPC models
evolved over the years and it's landed.
I understand the parties, the duty holders, how it all fits
together. I understand the geography and
the communities that we're going to be impacting.
So from that kind of vantage point, I can really help bring
the project vision to life and to encourage the collaboration
that's needed to meet the meet the goal.
And you just can't lead in that way if you if you're purely
transactional. I think you need to kind of step
up and kind of exit or demonstrate a little bit of a
different project leadership style.
Sometimes it's directive, it has to be it's just it's kind of
just a go do. But more often that I feel I'm
moving some more of a coaching kind of integration type style,
you know, explaining the bigger picture, be it to off water or
to the supply chain or to the customers, because all of those
different stakeholders all have a very different lens on the
project. You're or I find myself in a
privileged position where I'm at the centre of that and I can see
the the join up really, and I love it.
I mean, it's great. Just to wrap up, are there any
lessons that you've learned about working on a programme
like this or any leadership lessons that you've learnt that
you would pass on? Yeah.
I mean, I think we've, we've maybe covered quite a few, but
there's probably sort of four or five that sort of having
reflected on, on half. I mean, number one problem being
the breadth of experience I've been able to have him in my
career has really put me in a good place to, to, to sort of
take this project on. So like I said before, if, if
people listen to this and have the opportunity to work on
different roles, different project, that's stretchy and
that's where that's where the growth is the personal growth.
So, so do do that and you know, have breadth in your experience
because, because when projects and opportunities come up in the
future, that will really bear fruit.
I think as we mentioned before, another key lesson is, is the
one about stakeholder and stakeholder engagement being
absolutely critical. Do it early.
Listen more than you speak and allow, allow what you hear to
influence the project. Don't just treat it as a tick,
tick box exercise that that that can really help.
I think the third one is that whole legacy piece, Like I said
it, IT projects are more than just like tunnels through hills
and, and you know, concrete tubes.
It's a huge legacy that will impact society for years to
come. And there's the here and now,
there's the social value. What can your project do to make
people's life better through careers, investment, education?
And if that's what they can do, then lead it, you know, step
into that and drive it forward. Perhaps the next lesson is, is,
is just that importance about collaboration kind of is the way
I, I tend to lead naturally, but make room for it.
So like physically make room for it.
Sit together, work together, spend time together, talk and
really try and galvanise the team around you is another key
1. So yeah, it's, it's taught me
lots. There's not a day I don't learn,
which again, I think is another blessing, something it will
continue to stretch me. This programme of sure, but it's
been a real ride so far and I'm I'm looking forward to carrying
on and see where we get to the next few years.
John, thank you. When when is the project due to
complete? So the project's eight years end
to end, but we should start to receive the first tunnels, as I
mentioned for the six of them. So we'll get, we'll get them
kind of incrementally, but the first one will be brought into
service in 2031. So we've got a few years yet, a
lot of tunnelling ahead of us. And then sort of 2033 years will
be when we get the final tunnel and we'll have a brand new north
to South Horse water aqueduct and safely supplying water to
two and a half million people. And that'll be a huge
achievement, I'm sure. Brilliant, John.
That's a great way to end our podcast.
I just want to thank you again for your time.
It's been so interesting speaking to you, finding out
about what it takes to get a programme like this off the
ground and what it's like to work on a once in a generation
project. And if people would like to read
more about it, then watch out for the Summer 2026 issue
project where we you give us a detailed account of some of the
background and what's going on there as well.
So thank you John again for your time.
It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Also a pleasure. Thanks Emma for the opportunity.