If water companies aren’t currently meeting their leakage targets, it inevitably raises doubts over their ability to fulfil the ambitious goals of the next five years.
This is the view expressed by the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) in its annual report on company performance. The watchdog also chided firms for using the weather as a justification for supply interruptions and questioned whether lessons have been learnt after the ‘Beast from the East’.
It also pointed to an increase in average water use per person last year – from 141 litres to 143 – as evidence that water companies are not effectively communicating the issues around usage to their customers.
However, the report did highlight “encouraging progress” made in the battle to eradicate sewer flooding. Over the last five years the number of properties flooded with sewage has fallen by a quarter and that trend continued in 2018/19 – down from 3,560 to 3,252. There was also a further fall in the number of external areas flooded with sewage, with incidents having declined by almost 40 per cent over the past five years.
On leakage, the report acknowledged that most companies met their leakage targets last year, with the overall leakage level falling by 0.2 per cent to 3,169 megalitres per day. However, three companies – Thames, Affinity and Hafren Dyfrdwy – missed theirs.
The report said: “The fact that some companies are still missing their leakage targets now, casts serious doubts over whether they will be able to fulfill the more ambitious commitments for the next five-year reporting period.
“There have been a few innovative solutions trialled by companies in recent years to identify and fix leaks; such as deploying sniffer dogs, using drones and satellite images, and implementing loggers and sensors. We are yet to understand whether these have a positive impact on the amount of water being lost through leakage.”
As well as highlighting the worst performing companies, the report also points to the biggest reductions in leakage rates among the key players – Portsmouth (-14.51 per cent), Bristol Water (-10.57 per cent) and Cambridge Water (-8.33 per cent).
When it comes to supply interruptions, the report showed that in 2018/19, the average amount of time consumers were without water decreased 39 per cent to 13 minutes 14 seconds. However, this was largely because of comparisons with periods of extreme weather the year before. Comparing the latest annual figures to those of 2016/17 shows that there has been almost a 21.8 per cent increase, with eight companies missing their targets – Bristol, Dŵr Cymru, Northumbrian, Essex & Suffolk, SES, Severn Trent, South East and Thames.
The report said: “These increases are not acceptable, and companies should not be using the weather as an excuse. We expect to see these companies reviewing their plans for future resilience to prevent further increases from occurring and revisiting incident management plans to bring these numbers significantly down.”
CCWater said companies need to think about the messages they are sending out to customers all year round, not just during the direr parts of the year, to encourage them to use water wisely. It insisted that the move towards common performance commitments to reduce daily water use as part of PR19 was a positive step likely to drive change.
Other areas covered by the report included metering, where CCWater said further research is needed to ensure targeted advice is being given. It also stressed that the water sector must learn from its counterparts in energy when it comes to rolling out smart meters.
Karen Gibbs, senior policy manager at CCWater, said: “It’s clear that some companies still need to do much more when it comes to reducing supply interruptions and curbing leakage, which can damage people’s perceptions of the industry and deter them from saving water themselves.
“Being left without water causes huge inconvenience to people and can be extremely isolating for the most vulnerable customers.”