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Opening the water market to competition for business and domestic customers will “create complexity” for suppliers and consumers in ensuring the high water quality standards, according to the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) chief inspector.
Speaking in his first interview in the role, exclusively to Utility Week, DWI chief inspector Marcus Rink echoed concerns of his predecessor that the introduction of competition could hit quality levels.
“I see the water industry as a jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “At the moment it is a 25-piece puzzle. Now, when you put [non household] competition into the water industry, it becomes a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.”
Rink said this “adds another level of complexity” to the industry and to ensuring high levels of water quality.
The possible opening up of the domestic market from 2020, as set out by the Treasury in November, takes the market to a “50-million-piece jigsaw and increases complexity even further”. Rink said the potential of domestic competition remains as a “future challenge” for the DWI.
Despite these concerns, the DWI chief inspector said the regulatory regimes is robust enough to deal with the complexity “if a piece is missing”.
He added: “There is, because of the extra complexity, extra difficulty. If that extra difficulty leads to a depreciation in water quality, we will take decisive action to deal with it.”
Read the full interview with Marcus Rink here.
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