WET News

COMMENT Ambition front and centre for PR19 James Brockett, Editor, WET News SEPTEMBER "As we test each company's plan, we'll be looking for evidence of ambition and innovation and, crucially, we'll want to see customers and the environment put to the fore as never before." Ofwat senior director David Black has high expectations for the PR19 plans €35M Irish Water is investing over €35 million in a project to secure drinking water supply in the Greater Dublin Area by linking the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant with the Saggart Reservoirs, involving the construction of a 6.8km pipeline and pumping station 2.1M The number of calls domestic customers made to water companies to resolve problems last year, according to a new Consumer Council for Water report "Recognising the importance of the entire water basin is essential as urban water resilience is not possible without rural water resilience" Dr Mark Fletcher, global water leader at Arup, on the engineering consultancy's report warning that increasing numbers of cities worldwide risk reaching 'Day Zero' with taps running dry "Leakage is a challenge the whole industry faces and it's now more important than ever that we all do everything we can to save water, even in the NWG operating areas where we have secure supplies for the next 40 years" Northumbrian Water Group's new water director Dr Eliane Algaard will spearhead Essex & Suˆ olk Water's ambitious plans around water quality and catchment management, water eŠ ciency and leakage I t's that time again. Water companies submitted their business plans for the 2020-25 period to Ofwat at the beginning of September, kicking o- the long process that will see the regulator scrutinise, chew over and respond to the various priorities, projects and spending plans contained within them. The headline ƒ gure was that £50 billion will be invested over the course of the ƒ ve years among the English and Welsh water utilities; an impressive amount, representing a signiƒ cant 13 per cent increase on spending compared to AMP6. Average bills, meanwhile, will go down by 4 per cent in real terms. Promises have been made that wastage in the form of leaks will be slashed by a projected 16 per cent, while the environment will beneƒ t to the tune of a 90 per cent cut in serious pollution incidents. The simple fact that each water company is promising to 'do more with less' speaks volumes about how the climate for our heavily- regulated water industry has changed in the last ƒ ve or ten years. Not so long ago, it would have been taken for granted that greater investment meant more treatment plants, more concrete and more pipes in the ground, and that this would require higher bills to pay for it. Now, in the Totex-enabled, post-austerity world, there is an expectation that the industry invests in and uses technology and innovative approaches to get more out of its existing assets, raising performance – and that this improvement ought to come without tapping the customer for more money. With the threat of potential renationalisation hanging over the sector, the equation will be squared by a squeeze on shareholders, with the pill sweetened by the potential ƒ nancial e— ciencies of direct procurement for large projects and by money-generative activities in bioresources and renewable energy. Against this backdrop, the targets and goals set by the water companies, whether on leakage reduction, pollution reduction or improving resilience, are certainly ambitious, and will require innovation to achieve them. But will these ambitions be realised? No water company went into AMP6 saying that leakage was going to stay the same or worsen – yet over ƒ ve years, that was what happened. Performance on other key metrics, such as reducing pollution incidents and water consumption, has been better, but outcomes in these ƒ elds are always more unpredictable as they are reliant on variables such as the weather and the behaviour of customers. Building resilience, which is one of Ofwat's professed priorities, is also not something that can happen overnight, and even if reasonable progress is made, the industry's mettle may be tested, and its reputation once again put on the line, by the next big storm or period of drought. AMP6 has been a success from a water customer perspective, in that bills have been kept down, but the performance gains in many areas have been relatively modest, compared to the era where larger sums of money were being spent. This will now need to change. In cranking up the expectation of big performance gains in 2020-25, water companies may be about to silence their critics by achieving a technology-enabled step change; on the other hand, they may have made a rod for their own backs if they fail to deliver. The coming years should be an intriguing time. IN A NUTSHELL 2 WET NEWS OCTOBER 2018 | wwtonline.co.uk 59 Anglian Water has unveiled proposals for up to 59 further wetland treatment sites as part of its business plan from 2020 after the success of its work on the River Ingol in west Norfolk WHEN IT COMES TO THE SAFE TRANSPORTATION OF DRINKING WATER CHOOSE PROTECTA-LINE FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT WWW.GPSUK.COM OR CALL 01480 442600 BARRIER PIPE AND FITTINGS SYSTEM Over the last 20 years Protecta-Line has helped supply clean water through contaminated land for every leading water utility BARRIER PIPE AND FITTINGS SYSTEM Protecta-Line is a major award winning, fully integrated barrier pipe & fittings system BARRIER PIPE AND FITTINGS SYSTEM Protecta-Line is the most widely used barrier pipe in the UK BARRIER PIPE AND FITTINGS SYSTEM THE TRIED & TRUSTED BARRIER SYSTEM

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