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Water suppliers active in the Scottish market are considering buying into the English non-household retail market when it opens to competition next year.
Business Stream chief executive Jo Dow told Utility Week the company is looking at “a number of different options” for market entry into England post-2017. “Acquiring a business that has chosen to exit the market would certainly be an option,” she said.
Business Stream is the incumbent supplier in Scotland, and is the retail arm of wholesaler Scottish Water.
Everflow is a new entrant to the Scottish water market, having been granted its licence in October last year. The firm’s customer services director Josh Gill said: “Everflow hasn’t ruled out the possibility of acquiring English water companies’ customer bases.”
The market is due to open in April 2017, allowing 1.2 million non-household customers of providers based mainly or wholly in England to choose their supplier of water and wastewater services. It will link with the existing market in Scotland, which opened to business customers in April 2008.
Portsmouth Water recently became the first water company to announce it would withdraw from the non-household market last month, handing its retail activities on to Scottish supplier Castle Water.
In a straw poll conducted by Utility Week, five of the water-only companies – Affinity Water, Bristol Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water and Cholderton and District Water – said they would remain in the non-household market, while South East Water and Cambridge/South Staffordshire Water refused to comment on their plans.
Read Utility Week’s analysis, ‘The non-household water retail market: who’s in and who’s out?’ here
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