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Water Suppliers Ordered To Reduce Bills By £50
Regulator of the water industry Ofwat has announced a big new investment programme and spending package of £51 billion over the next five years, which will see average customer bills reduced by around £50 before inflation.
It hopes to achieve this by calling for greater efficiency, focusing on lower financing costs and driving innovation forward. Approximately £13 billion of the package will be used to provide resilient services and a better environment under the pressures of climate change and a growing population.
New levels of service have been set to ensure that suppliers transform their operations in the next few years, including cutting leakage by 16 per cent, which should save enough water to meet demand in Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool combined.
Plans are also in place to invest more than £1 billion to protect communities from flooding, as well as reducing pollution escaping into streams and rivers by nearly a third. In addition, Ofwat is providing £450 million to investigate new water resources like reservoirs or transferring water from a location to where it is in abundance to places facing water stress.
Rachel Fletcher, Ofwat chief executive, said: “Today we’re firing the starting gun on the transformation of the water industry backed by a major investment programme to deliver new, improved services for customers and the environment and resilience for generations to come. Now water companies need to crack on, turn this into a reality and transform their performance for everyone.
“They will be investing the equivalent of an extra £6 million each and every day to overhaul services, strengthen their infrastructure and improve our natural environment. And at the same time, customers’ bills will fall by an average of £50 before inflation.”
How water companies perform over the next five years could have an impact on whether or not businesses choose to stay with them as a customer. It is now possible for companies to switch water supplier and find one that better suits their needs, thanks to the deregulation of the English water retail market back in April 2017.
There are numerous benefits associated with switching supplier, including cost savings via better tariffs from a different supplier, enjoying a better service and more accurate billing, being able to consolidate your entire water supply across numerous sites with a single supplier and finding a company that specialises in services for your industry or operational needs.
It’s possible that switching could see your water bills reduced by between ten and 18 per cent. Because the retail market in this country is so new, however, it can be hard for businesses to work out which supplier is the right one for them – which is why it can be useful to hire a consultancy service so they can do all the hard work for you. Give us a call today to find out more.