Police Scotland
Police Scotland avoid £250,000 per year in water costs
31 March 2025 Reading time: 4 minutes
“We have a large number of sites across Scotland and have experienced a number of water issues requiring expert support. In this recent situation, thanks to Business Stream and Police Scotland’s investment in water AMR, we were alerted as soon as a change was identified and this enabled us to act quickly. We can always be confident that Business Stream will send a team promptly to investigate and resolve the issue. We greatly value the knowledge, expertise, advice and when necessary, the response time, all of which when combined provides the reassurance we require to reduce and avoid unnecessary costs whilst remaining water efficient.”
Background
Police Scotland was established on 1 April 2013 and is responsible for policing across the whole of Scotland, some 28,168 square miles, covering a third of the United Kingdom’s landmass with a unique range of urban, rural, island and remote communities.
It is the second largest force in the UK with 23,000 officers and staff working together for the people of Scotland.
Police Scotland currently has responsibility for in excess of 550 sites for the SPA with a presence in each of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas comprising a total internal area of circa 450,932 square metres the majority of which consume water. The estate is complex comprising of a diverse range and function of properties including operational police stations, corporate and administrative buildings, housing, laboratories, radio sites, custody suites, firing ranges, training venues, student accommodation, vehicle workshops and a farm ranging in size from 11,000 square metre city centre offices to 25 square metre remote radio site hill-top locations.
Business Stream provides water and waste water services, including added value solutions, to Police Scotland’s estate portfolio and has done so since April 2020 through the Public Sector Scotland Framework.
The challenge
In January 2025, Business Stream identified higher than usual water consumption at Police Scotland’s Baird Street Station in Glasgow’s City Centre - brought to their attention by the AMR installed on site triggering an alarm threshold.
As part of a drive to improve water efficiency and take more control of usage, Police Scotland have made significant investment in Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology since 2020.
AMR are small devices connecting to water meters that send meter readings in 15-minute intervals to a centralised point via either a wired or wireless connection to provide almost real-time data.
AMRs don’t need physical intervention from the customer, and the data can be accessed 24/7, 365 days of the year which means businesses, and their water retailers, can remotely monitor water use on site and identify any issues that arise.
Although the site’s usual consumption was around 5m3 (5,000 litres) of water per day, the sudden spike in consumption at Baird Street Station was showing a consumption of 379m3 (379,000 litres) of water per day - equivalent to 56 Olympic sized swimming pools of water.
Business Stream alerted Police Scotland, whose regional Facilities Manager (FM) was initially able to investigate and rule out any obvious issues such as internal and / or external possible explanations. In support, Business Stream deployed a team within 24 hours to investigate the issue and conduct any essential emergency repair work.
The solution
As there was no evidence above ground of any issues, the team used a correlator device, which listens for vibration at either end of a pipe, to quickly check for any leaks in the station’s underground pipework and successfully identified the location of the leak.
Because the pipework location was beneath tarmac, this required a significant excavation which Business Stream was able to carry out to successfully repair the pipework, all within the same day.
Results
As a result of Business Stream’s quick and efficient pipework repair, the site’s consumption returned to around 5m3 (5,000 litres) of water per day. Consequently, Police Scotland avoided excessive water supply charges equivalent to an annualised cost of approximately £250,000.
We’re fully committed to improving our environmental performance and are certified to ISO 14001:2015. You can find out more in our environmental policy. Our Solutions team are certified to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018.
