Isn’t it time to end the ‘boom and bust’ AMP spending cycle once and for all?  Surely, this five-year roller-coaster ride is damaging the health and sustainability of the entire UK water industry?

What kind of business would put together a five year plan and then wait until the full five years are up before getting started on the next one?  It’s certainly not the way to run things if you want to be cost-efficient and sustainable.  Yet this is precisely how the AMP spending cycle forces the UK Water Industry to do business.

Nurturing a healthy and efficient supply chain is an essential element of sound business planning.  But each AMP spending round leads to a ‘boom and bust’ timeline with the supply chain sailing ahead during years two, three and four, but effectively becalmed for two years in between.

So what happens? The industry is forced to lay off staff during the lean times and with it trained and skilled personnel are lost that will be needed again only a couple of years’ later.  So, really valuable, capable people have taken their talents to other industries, leaving the UK Water industry for good. 

Equipment manufacturers get tooled up in the busy times, only to be threatened with the financial drain of plant running idle once the projects run out.  It’s a kind of ‘groundhog day’ for the supply chain, where the industry is always taking three steps forward, and two costly steps back.

UK Water industry needs a sustainable supply chain.  The best way to do this, is by allowing suppliers to achieve steady business growth as a reward for delivering quality, value-for-money and timely projects.

It’s just not common sense to synchronise every water company into the same five year cycle.   Why not stagger the five-year spending rounds for different water companies to even out the peaks and troughs?    Better still, the stop-start cycle could be scrapped altogether and replaced with a rolling five-year programme, so that water companies are always planning well into the future.

What’s your view?  Take part in our Web4Water Poll on the Web4Water home page or leave a comment at http://www.web4water.com/poll/poll.asp?poll=1

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