Question Details: With such a high level of drinking water quality compliance in the UK why do we continue to invest
in quality, surely we should now be spending on reducing leakage where many companies are not so successful???
A good question and a fairly straight forward answer:
Looking at the attached graph, the improvements in water quality since privatisation are clear to see with instances of failures
to meet standards falling steadily from over 50,000 to less than 2,000 pa.
Significant investment has been made to address a number of key drivers including Nitrates, Pesticides, Cryptosporidium, Lead and discolouration arising from the condition of our water mains network.
However the Industry would fail it's customers and be open to accusations of wasting that investment if the trend in water quality compliance was ever reversed and therefore we will continue to invest - albeit at a much lower level. The next Periodic Review of prices will almost certainly see much reduced levels of capital investment for water quality schemes with considerably more emphasis being placed on capital maintenance spend.
The reference to Leakage is interesting as many companies now struggle with the question of what is the economic level of leakage? In simple terms if water cost £100 per megalitre to treat and supply and it cost a company £10,000 in resources to reduce it's leakage figure by one megalitre, has it spent it's customers money wisely?
