Water UK concludes new connection consultation

Water UK has concluded its consultation which sought to establish an industry-wide approach to adopting Ofwat’s new connection charges

The consultation, which consisted of Water UK and various water company stakeholders, published its conclusions this month.

Participants discussed ways of standardising the approach for implementing the new regulations across the sector.

“The purpose of the exercise was to try and respond to the developers request that, when implementing the new charging rules, the water companies didn’t all go in a totally different directions” said David Strang, senior legal and policy adviser at Water UK.

Offset revenue and infrastructure calculations were raised as issues that potentially require further attention, but the main challenge identified for water companies was Ofwat’s requirement for upfront costing.

“There are certain changes we would like Ofwat to make to the rules. It would be helpful, for example, for them to allow some relaxation to the rules regarding upfront pricing. Our position is that this may sometimes not be desirable from a developers point of view,” said Strang

“Let’s say somebody wants five miles of infrastructure put in, in a remote location, you’ve no idea how to quote for that job until you’ve done a substantial amount of work—giving an upfront estimate is more or less impossible,” he added.

Despite these concerns, the new regulations were generally received as a positive change.

“The idea of giving more freedom to the companies to determine how they charge, is seen as a good thing,” said Strang. 

“It’s an opportunity to simplify things and it’s also an opportunity to try different approaches that were not possible under the previous rules.”

Ofwat’s new new charging rules are due to come into effect in April 2018.