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Ofwat Fines Thames Water Over Water Leak Repairs.

Thames Water has been fined by industry regulator Ofwat for failing to tackle water leak repairs properly and failing to meet its commitments to cut the number of leaks in its area during 2016-2017.

 

The supplier now has to pay £120 million back to its company for breaching its licence conditions, the London Evening Standard reports. The company has also been handed down a fine of £55 million in automatic penalties for losing millions of litres of water from its pipes and is also paying an additional £65 million following an Ofwat investigation.

 

Each of the company’s customers will be given a rebate of £15 over the next two years, while additional reductions will see the total taken to £26 by the year 2025.

 

During 2016-2017, numerous water leaks hit London, including one in December 2016 that a water main burst in Islington, with some 100 people having to be evacuated from their flooded properties. Thames Water has now committed to making sure its leakage target is back on track come 2020, pledging to slash leaks by an additional 15 per cent between 2020 and 2025.

 

Commenting on the matter, environment secretary Michael Gove said the supplier had failed entirely in its duty of care to its customers, “leaving them to suffer leaks for far too long through poor management”.

 

And chief executive of Ofwat Rachel Fletcher added: “Thames Water failed its customers in tackling leakage, and the measures illustrate the scale of the shortcomings and how seriously we take them.”

 

She went on to say that the company had breached two of its legal obligations – not paying enough attention to leak reduction and underestimating the significance of its underperformance where leakage is concerned, all the while reassuring Ofwat that it was providing both an economic and efficient service.

 

Finding water leaks and having them repaired is an absolute must if you want to reduce your energy bills and reduce the amount of water you’re potentially wasting. Not only is water wastage bad for your back pocket, but it’s bad for the environment as well at a time when we should be protecting our water resources and safeguarding them for future generations.

 

If you think you might have a leak, get in touch with us here at H2O Building Services. We’ll come out to your site to carry out a water audit, which will include full analysis of your water bills over the last year or more. We check for spikes in usage and waste water management charges, so we can tell if there is a leak at your property – as well as how severe the leak is.

 

Once this has been done, we then carry out leak detection across your entire place of business to find all possible leaks before sending you a report, which will include costs for repair. Give us a call now to find out more about how we can help.

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