South West Water’s elite L-Team gather at a top secret military location, before being unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

The A-Team were a group of ex-Special Forces soldiers who became an unstoppable force for good when they were unleashed on society.

Their former masters may well have wished they could recapture the A-Team and bring them back ‘in house’, but the team’s televisual success rapidly made that impossible.

A similar fate has befallen South West Water’s ‘L-Team’.

Previously outsourced to a company whose name has been erased from the history books, the L-Team has now been reclaimed by South West Water to become a highly-specialised, in-house Leak Detection Team, or L-Team.

Staff for the L-Team have been transferred from the “previous outsourced supplier” and start “operational deployment” with their new vans in October.

Wisely, given the probability that the L-Team will emulate their alphabetical predecessors and be a big hit with the laydeez (and gents), South West Water has opted for vans from Europe’s most romantic van manufacturer, Peugeot, whose rampant lion logo has clear synergies with the passionate, highly-committed rapid response service provided by the L-Team’s personnel.

The L-Team is a little larger than the A-Team and requires not one, but 54, specially-equipped Peugeot Partner vans to ensure it remains mobile, 24/7. Supplied by local dealership Hawkins Motors Ltd, in St Austell, the L-Team’s 54 Partner SE L2 HDi 92 vans have been converted and equipped with specialist leak-detection equipment and traffic management signs and bollards to cater for roadside incidents and other unforeseen emergencies…

The man behind the L-Team’s vans is Mark Karkeek, South West Water Transport Manager, who said:

“Faced with the opportunity to specify a whole new bespoke range of vans for this purpose provided us with a chance to do things quickly and utilised the expertise of our suppliers, helped by having first-hand experience of the durable Peugeot Partner van. Getting them modified for purpose by Hawkins, our local Peugeot Dealer, who converted the vehicle with our specific and exacting conversion requirements, was greatly appreciated.”

Threats of violence played no part in Hawkins’ prompt delivery and effective service, although South West Water’s existing relationship with Peugeot, which is the company’s primary LCV supplier, probably did help.