Investment planning is the development of plans to deliver stable or improving levels of service to customers at appropriate levels of expenditure and efficient allocation of resources. These plans are justified to the Regulators on the basis of current and future risk of service failure.

Prioritisation of mains replacement is based on the implementation of investment plans to provide the required levels of service at least cost over the long term.

This project will identify and recommend transferable approaches to investment planning and prioritisation of mains replacement between the water and gas distribution sectors. The specific objectives are to:

• Identify transferable methods of investment planning which incorporate multi criteria risk-based approaches;
• Present a robust decision support procedure which helps to deliver a more cost-effective investment plan whilst still meeting safety risk reduction obligations; and
• Identify additional risk assessment methods to plan and prioritise investment.

• Steer the future of investment planning practice for the gas sector

• Improve efficiency and effectiveness of mains replacement schemes

• Gain knowledge and experience of tried and tested approaches for investment planning based on service failure risk.