Our engineers need to get out quickly to gas escapes, and we were always comfortably ahead of our statutory response times when it came to responding to urgent escapes..

Some gas escapes can be responded to within a two hour window, where the risk to the customer is deemed lower. We were always comfortably ahead of our targets for the year throughout RIIO GD1.

We work out a total risk score for all pipes which require a repair. The score is based on a wide range of criteria, and is helpful in allowing us to prioritise our repair work. Our focus on repairing more challenging pipes during the pandemic helped us to comfortably beat our risk target in the final year of RIIO GD1, consistent with our outperformance every year since 2013.

This refers to emergency repairs on our network. We were comfortably ahead of our target throughout RIIO GD1.

Every metal pipe is given a risk score, based on factors such as the number of gas escapes. The overall ‘risk removed’ figure therefore gives a snapshot of our progress in making the network safer. Good news – we were ahead of target in 2020/21 and consistently year on year throughout RIIO GD1, exceeding our eight year target of 111,192, by 97%.

A measure of the number of gas escapes which resulted in gas finding its way into a building – presenting a potential safety risk to customers. There were 49 instances of gas in buildings in the final year of RIIO GD1 and we’re continuing to work to reduce this number further.

Old metal pipes are subject to fractures or corrosion. We’re gradually replacing them with new plastic pipes to reduce these types of failure, and comfortably beat our annual target year on year throughout RIIO GD1.

Replacing old metal pipes with modern plastic ones dramatically reduces the risk of gas escapes. We replaced 3,886 km of old metal pipes during RIIO GD1, just shy of our 3,975 km target. This was due to some of our essential work being paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however we’re making up the shortfall in RIIO GD2.

This refers to the length of old pipes replaced while carrying out work at a customer’s request, such as diverting a pipe. We cannot influence this output, given it is customer driven, and were behind target throughout RIIO GD1. Lots of disparate factors can influence this statistic, such as the health of the economy. More prosperity means customers invest more in property (e.g. building extensions or new builds) – and that means more private pipes get replaced.

Service pipes are the connecting pipes which link a customer’s home or business to the gas mains in the street. We made a decision to focus this activity where it delivered most value for our customers and upgrade service pipes as part of planned work to modernise our network, rather than carrying out bulk service renewals that might not add value for our customers. The Covid-19 pandemic saw a further fall in the number of service pipes replaced while we had limited access to customers homes.

We are constantly assessing the overall health of our assets (pipes and associated equipment) and the level of risk to inform how and where we invest in the future.

We are required to show that we have fully complied with these essential Health and Safety Executive regulations, by, for example, having a major accident prevention policy in place.

We are required to show that we have fully complied with these essential Health and Safety Executive regulations.

Sub-deduct networks are parts of the gas network where ownership and responsibility are unclear – presenting a potential safety risk. Through re-engineering these networks, or establishing third party acceptance of responsibility, we have now taken all sites off-risk.