Why we’re renewing your water mains

We’re investing in our network and installing new pipelines to minimise bursts. By doing this we can keep more water in the ground to help your local chalk stream whilst continuing to provide your community with a reliable and high-quality supply of water for many years to come.

Old pipes vs new pipes

When a water main bursts we have to repair it as quickly as possible. This is due to the fact that escaping water is a potential threat to public safety and can damage property and the environment.

We're replacing our old iron water mains with new plastic pipes. This will help us to provide you with a reliable supply of drinking water and reduce the disruption caused to your community, when a water main bursts.

Finding pipes that need renewing

With 16,500 kilometres of pipes supplying over 1.2 million customer properties renewing our network is a non-stop job.

Renewing these pipes ensures a continuous, secure supply of high-quality tap water at the lowest possible price to our customers. Renewing pipes is a costly operation, which means we must carefully prioritise the pipes that most urgently need replacing. We constantly check the condition of our pipes and use historical data to predict which are most likely to burst. When selecting a renewal scheme, we also check that our work won’t cause unnecessary interruptions to customer supplies, flooding, or major traffic disruption.

Once we’ve identified the most urgent pipes for renewal, we liaise with the Highways Authorities to agree when we can carry out the work. We appreciate that renewals can cause disruption and inconvenience to our customers. However, with careful design and planning, we’ll make sure we renew the right pipes at the right time at a reasonable cost to ensure our infrastructure is fit for 21st century needs.