Sewage Maintenance: How CCTV Surveys Cut Risk

Sewage networks are ageing, complex, and under more pressure than ever. Heavy rainfall events, population growth, grease build up, and legacy defects all add up to one thing: more blockages, more flooding, and more pollution incidents.

Regulators and the public are now tracking performance in far more detail. That makes proactive maintenance and defensible evidence a must.

What is changing for sewage right now

The Environment Agency’s Event Duration Monitoring Annual Return data for 2024 shows:

• A 2.9% decrease in the number of sewage spills compared with 2023
• A 0.2% increase in overall spill duration
• A total monitored spill duration of 3,614,428 hours in 2024

Whether spill counts rise or fall, duration and repeat locations are what drive public anger and operational risk. The data is also visible via the Storm Overflow portal, which makes comparisons easier for everyone.

Ofwat has proposed major enforcement packages where the findings point directly at failures to operate, maintain, and upgrade wastewater assets:

• Wessex Water: £11m proposed enforcement package tied to failures to operate, maintain and upgrade the wastewater network
• Anglian Water: £62.8m proposed enforcement package tied to failures in managing wastewater treatment works and the network

Ofwat has also noted more than £240m in wastewater enforcement penalties and redress in 2025.

Ofwat’s PR24 final determinations describe a £104bn programme for 2025 to 2030, positioned around transforming performance and delivering cleaner rivers and seas.

New statutory duties are coming into force

Under the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, water and sewerage undertakers must publish annual Pollution Incident Reduction Plans from April 2026, with Implementation Reports from April 2027.

The thread running through all of this is simple: you need to know your assets, prove what you found, show what you fixed, and demonstrate that you are reducing repeat problems.

Why is sewage maintenance needed

Most sewer issues are not a mystery. They are usually one of these:

• Root ingress, deformation, fractures, open joints
• Siltation and debris build up, reduced capacity
• Misconnections, cross connections, or poor historical records
• Fatbergs and inappropriate disposals
• Ingress and infiltration during wet weather, surcharging during peaks

The challenge is that many networks are hard to access, records are patchy, and the evidence is scattered across teams, contractors, and spreadsheets. That is where CCTV surveys and structured field data pay for themselves.

What are CCTV sewage surveys

CCTV surveys help you move from reactive response to planned intervention. A good survey programme gives you:

• Condition insight: structural and service condition, defect type, severity, location
• Targeted maintenance: focus jetting, lining, patch repairs, or excavation where it matters
• Repeat incident reduction: identify the true cause behind recurring blockages or flooding
• Audit trail: date stamped video, photos, and coded defects support internal reviews and regulator scrutiny
• Better budgets: you can justify investment with evidence, not anecdotes

The operational value is clear. The reporting value is just as important. When regulators and communities ask what changed, you need a clear before and after story that stands up.

Where Survey Solutions helps with sewage maintenance

Survey Solutions helps you run a sewage maintenance and inspection programme like a proper system.

1) Standardised CCTV survey capture
Create a consistent workflow for field crews and contractors:

• Asset identifiers and location capture
• Manhole and pipe section details
• Defect logging and classification, with required fields and validation
• Mandatory media capture for key defects
• Automatic timestamps and user attribution

2) Faster turnaround from field to decision
Reduce delays and rework:

• Data captured once, in the right structure
• No chasing missing fields or unclear notes
• Offline capable capture where coverage is poor
• Instant syncing when crews return to signal

3) A single view of the maintenance story
Bring surveys, defects, and actions together:

• Prioritisation lists based on severity, frequency, and consequence
• Repeat location tracking across time
• Cleaner handovers between field teams, planners, and engineers
• Simple exports for dashboards, client reporting, and compliance packs

4) Better comms with local stakeholders
Local authorities, businesses, and residents want clarity:

• What did you inspect
• What did you find
• What did you fix
• What’s next

A well run workflow helps you answer those questions with confidence.

A practical starting point for a maintenance led survey campaign

If you want quick wins, start with a focused programme:

1. Pick known hotspots: repeat blockages, flood reports, pollution risk sites
2. Run CCTV surveys with standardised capture and mandatory evidence
3. Triage defects into clear action bands: immediate, planned, monitor
4. Close the loop by recording follow up works and re inspection outcomes
5. Use the dataset to demonstrate improvement, and to defend budgets

Sewage maintenance is now measured, compared, and increasingly enforced. The teams that win will be the ones who can prove what they know about their networks, and show that maintenance is reducing risk over time.

If you want to see how a structured CCTV survey workflow looks in practice, we can show you a working example tailored to your patch.