Water, Water everywhere? Delivering resilient water and waste water services 2018-19

Our report on the resilience of water companies’ water and waste water services, explores companies’ performance and overall trends in key areas including supply interruptions, leakage, sewer flooding, water consumption, drinking water quality and metering.

Key findings include:

• Supply interruptions have risen by a fifth compared to the levels seen in 2016-17.
• 3.16 billion litres of water was lost through leakage, with three water companies failing to meet their targets in 2018-19.
• Bristol Water was the best performer on leakage, losing an average of 71 litres per property per day – compared to the worst performer Thames Water (177 litres).
• Over the past four years, water consumption has risen with the average person using 143 litres per day in 2018-19 – two litres more than the previous year.
• The number of properties flooded with sewage has fallen by a quarter in 5 years. External sewer flooding is down almost 40% over the same period.

Our Senior Policy Manager, Karen Gibbs says:

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.