Three more companies granted self-supply water licences

Laundry firm Berendsen, pub company Stonegate and beer and cider company Heineken have all been granted self-supply licences to provide their own water retail services.

Waterscan will act as the managing agent for all three companies after the water and sewerage applications were approved by regulator Ofwat earlier this month.

The water management company, Waterscan, will take on the role and responsibilities for retail functions including meter reading, CMOS transactions, wholesaler management and finding further water efficiency savings.

Stonegate, which operates more than 690 pubs and bars across the UK, became the sixth organisation to apply for a self-supply licence in June. Berendsen submitted an application to provide water retail services to its 32 sites, while Heineken said water is integral to its business, in both growing hops, barley and apples and the production of its beer.

The companies join brewer Greene King, hospitality firm Whitbread, brewery and pub retailer Marston’s, Coca Cola European Partners, and Blackpool Council who have all been granted licences.

Meanwhile communications services company BT applied for a self-supply licence at the end of October and is waiting to see if it has been successful.

In its application it said that the licence would present an opportunity to “build on the works already undertaken” and “develop its partnership with Waterscan whilst driving cost and consumption control, particularly through a single electronic bill”.

It said: “Taking control of data will help BT to provide more accurate reporting of consumption and spend which will improve identification of high consumption sites particularly on unmanned telephone exchanges and sites with a mobile workforce.”