The company believes it can also tap into a huge global market for ground source heating in colder climates and ground source cooling in warm locations like Singapore. An above ground demonstrator unit with Government funding has been up and running since August 2025 in Pendle.

A major problem Neil and the Aquaspira team have faced is being tied ‘to the coal face’. This is why RedCAT is helping the Nelson-based company to consolidate as a business, bring forward new climate-related low carbon technologies, and importantly, develop new markets.

“Sharing creative ideas with the RedCAT team – and importantly other RedCAT Network members who are experts in related areas – really works for us,” says Neil.

“The target of net-zero 2050 is a mountain and will not happen without innovation. RedCAT and its extensive network are going to be crucial in delivering that innovation.”

A large part of RedCAT’s input comes from embedded energy and automation specialist Ian Trow who is not only deeply involved in Aquaspira’s net-zero vision but also a helpful sounding board for some of the day-to-day and strategic planning.

Neil and co-founder Mark Stanway founded Aquaspira in 2007. Developing the business plan and raising the funding was the easy part. Through hard knocks, intense research and development, persistence, and hard-won experience, the company has become a leading authority in its field with 42 employees.

“We were aware of the challenges of the large diameter pipeline market and we had identified a technology encasing steel within high-density polyurethane (HDPE) which answered many of those problems. We also quickly realised that we would need a substantive business and technical strategy if we were to get the business off the ground.”

The company set itself the goal of transforming stormwater management by challenging the conventional use of concrete. Instead, it advocates the use of CSR pipes as lightweight alternatives that combine steel’s strength and plastic’s durability.

Low material and manufacturing costs are further underpinned by a smaller excavation footprint and faster programme times.

The result is cuts of 96% in product mass, 25% in excavations, 60% in transport and 75% fewer on-site movements. CSR also now benefits from an 85% use of recycled steel.

Aquaspira’s early approach worked well and its business strength is now based on two key elements.

The first is a technically superior product – the second is its accumulated knowledge. After a period of initial learning and reflection, the company has been able to position itself as a technical market leader and recognised low carbon innovator.

It now supplies and services all UK utility companies, plus private and social housing projects, data centres, and ‘big shed’ warehouse buildings. Most projects are large and involve laying pipes to depths in some cases  in excess of 5 metres.

It is not all plain sailing, however. Excavating open trenches is a high carbon activity and potentially dangerous.

Trenches greater than 1.2m metres deep must have side wall or similar protection, and, for good reason, pipes more than 900mm in diameter are classified as ‘structures’. These require considerably more attention to detail on design and installation, and greater product performance.

As two case examples below show, Aquaspira’s light manoeuvrable pipe sections meet these significant requirements and are much easier to move and push-fit together in restricted access spaces.

As the company’s development continues, RedCAT and Ian Trow have been able to support the business in three critical parts of its commercialisation journey.

The first is helping to scale the UK construction sector’s transition from carbon-intense concrete and clay to CSR. The company has supplied 27km of pipeline in 2024 in the UK and wants to extend this nationwide.

The second is developing ground source heating and cooling technologies that bolt-on to Aquaspira’s existing drainage systems. With an average invert depth of 4m, there is significant heating and cooling potential over standard shallow trench systems. The company wants to integrate heat and cooling recovery into its standard water management system solutions

The third – related to the second – is a heat recovery demonstrator unit that Ian describes below funded by the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity funding (UKSPF) via Pendle Borough Council.

To put energy recovery into context, the greater the depth, the more consistent the temperature required by ground source heat recovery systems. Temperatures generally barely fluctuate at depths below 10 to 15m; the problem is that the greater the depth the greater the cost. A perfect compromise is around 4m.

“In 2015, Ofwat’s investment focus moved from sewage to potable water,” explains Neil. “Nationally, that has created its own problems and from April 2025 the focus has switched back to clean rivers. The change places different strains on the business and we are  rapidly reorientating with RedCAT’s help.”

“RedCAT is a forum where businesses can meet, talk, and share, pool, expand and test innovative ideas. This is really useful for us and has improved our traction.”

“For product development we needed guidance ‘outside the box’ to develop ground source heating and cooling as a standard part of our net-zero journey and we are very much in RedCAT’s hands for this.”

“At an operational level, my recommendation for others considering whether to go down the low carbon route is to look at the payback,” says Neil. “From our experience if you save carbon, you save money! That should also apply equally to our customers and we are looking to provide solutions for them”

Ian Trow outlines RedCAT’s input. “We have helped Aquaspira steer towards the twin goals of business stabilisation (financial and operational) and innovation in large-scale heat recovery,” he says.

“Our focus has been on planning an Innovation Proof of Concept (PoC) field trial in Pendle, together with the adoption of digitisation systems to help correlate heat recovery simulation models and improving existing product and production features to help penetrate new markets.

“To raise sales to fund future investment, more discussions and RedCAT support will be needed. These will focus on developing a powerful, unique marketing message, plus RedCAT’s five-step commercialisation strategy – Innovation, Ventures, Scale, Advocacy and Network”.

Scale will build Aquaspira’s local presence throughout the Northwest, UK regions, and beyond.

Advocacy will elevate this sales structure in the next 18 months to a strategic national and international level securing high profile visibility.

Smaller external diameters and push-fit connections on pipework saved Thames Water time and money on a London sewer upgrade, according to New Civil Engineer (NCE). With limited space and local disruption issues, the utility successfully used a 93m long 2.1m diameter Aquaspira CSR pipe.

NCE said handling and weight issues made fitting conventional large-diameter concrete pipes extremely difficult. In contrast, composite materials meant trench widths could be reduced by 500mm and depths by 400mm. Pipe sections weighing just 400kg were handled by small machines.

In 2024, Balfour Beatty used Aquaspira pipes for a Hampshire rail culvert extension where two dams created a 40-metre-long dry river channel to hold a 26m buried culvert. Space was again a problem.

Two CSR pipe were laid after a metre of riverbed silt was removed from the drained channel that was later backfilled. The pipes were designed to withstand the weight of an access road and trains. University of Birmingham tested the equivalent of 7,000 high-speed transits with no ill-effects.

The factory gate-to-site carbon footprint was 48% lower than traditional solutions; lightweight pipes also increased site safety.

Other studies can be seen on Aquaspira’s website.