Utility Week

10 | JANUARY 2021 | UTILITY WEEK Interview "Customers want a company to do what it says it will, and when things go wrong to deal with it efficiently." Peter Perry, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, WELSH WATER P eter Perry joined Welsh Water as an apprentice and worked his way up through the company as a civil engineer before becoming chief operating officer then managing director, as well as doing a stint at United Utilities in between. By the time he became chief execu- tive of Welsh Water in April 2020 , the country was being gripped by the pandemic. Given his history, he is acutely aware of the operational challenges the sector faces – and he sees its strengths. "One thing the company – and whole industry – does really well is respond to incidents. Covid isn't a trunk main that's gone, or a problem with the treatment works – it's longer lived – but we've got a rhythm in place. Although it's business as unusual, we've adapted. It was a strange time to take over and not without challenges, but we've taken things in our stride." The pandemic is expected to cost Welsh Water between £20 million and £30 million this year, which includes revenue losses and protecting staff and custom- ers with extra precautions, but Perry believes the worst may be yet to come. "I don't think we've yet seen the full impact of the pandemic on the state of the economy and unemploy- ment, that will come through shortly, so bad debt and debt recovery will become an issue in time but it hasn't hit a level yet that is reflective of the macro-environment we are in." Looking ahead, the company has a series of difficult performance targets set by Ofwat as well as a bill cut of 9.4 per cent by 2025. "By any measure this is a tough period, but we have to keep it in context because it's going to benefit custom- ers with bills falling in real terms," Perry says. "We're getting to the point where our operation strategies are in place to hit those targets." Among the high priorities for the business is to improve water quality. Perry admits Welsh Water is "a bit of an outlier when it comes customer contacts for water discolouration" so a project is underway to upgrade ageing cast iron pipes across networks that cause discolouration. Another pressing concern is on the wastewater side. The Welsh coast gets battered by storms rolling in from the Atlantic and earlier this year Ciara and Dennis led to widespread flooding, including of external sewers. The company is tasked with reducing these incidents by 25 per cent per by 2025. "We had some really unusual storms this summer. We were stretched back in August but now we are ahead of our targets. That's the one on the wastewater side that will challenge us," says Perry. AMP6 investment in this area is becoming visible, including first-of-a-kind peak flow effluent treatment works to deal with combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Perry describes them as being "like a micro-plant", which the company was able to build two of within the existing wastewater treatment works in Llanelli. "If we were to undertake a traditional approach to reduce overflows, we would have to build 35 Olympic- size swimming pools capacity." He says these micro-plants, which are currently being commissioned, treat storm water very differently to

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