How we find and fix leaks
Fixing leaks means we can keep the water flowing to your home and take less and less water from your local environment.
Our team find leaks across our network using the very latest technologies – from the thousands of sensors we have deep underground, to the highly detailed satellite surveys we use – leaks have nowhere to hide.
We beat our leakage target and reduced leakage by 15.8% in 2022/23 against a goal of 14%. Yes, you read that right! This is the largest percentage reduction in leakage of any UK water company. It's the lowest level of leakage we've ever had, as well as one of the toughest leak reduction targets in the water industry!
We're confident we’ll meet our commitment to reduce leakage by 20% by 2025. We're determined to build on our success from the 2015-2020 period in having the largest percentage reductions in leakage of all UK water companies.
Meet Dave: one of our leak detectives
What happens when I report a leak?
There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when a leak is reported. Our team are always on standby to respond quickly to leaks. While we don’t get blue lights, we get to leaks fast – within two hours for urgent situations.
Once we’ve checked things out, we bring in the various other organisations that need to be involved to get a leak sorted, including the local council and highways departments. As you can imagine, coordinating different permissions and permits can take a bit of time, but rest assured we’re always working hard to keep things moving.
A leak report
Firstly, you can report a leak online.
If it’s urgent it’s best to call us so we can get a technician out to investigate as soon as possible - 0345 357 2407
We also have teams out and about in our area every day looking for leaks.
Investigation
Our technician will visit to see what’s causing the leak.
- Urgent leaks (within 2 hours) – when it’s affecting supply, or causing flooding or damage a technician will be on site as soon as possible
- Serious leaks (within 24 hours) – when it’s not affecting to supply but a there’s a significant amount of water being leaked
- Less serious leaks (up to 3 days) – all other leaks
Planning the repair
Based on the investigation we plan what’s needed to carry out the repair and schedule a date.
If the leak is on a major road we need to apply to local authorities for permission and agree the best way to carry out the repair safely with the least disruption.
We’ll always do this as quickly as we can and whilst it can take up to 30 days, we can usually fix things much faster than this.
Once we have the right permission and permits, we can schedule the work.
Repair
Wherever possible our repair team will come on the scheduled day to fix the leak, but our priority is to make sure everyone has access to clean water, so we sometimes need to change plans to do emergency repairs.
If we need to put in place road closures, or temporary traffic controls, this can take a bit longer to organise.
We won’t turn anyone’s water off unless we really need to, and we’ll always let you know before we do.
Restore
We’ll put the area back to normal within 3 working days. This can be anything from resurfacing the road, to resowing grass seeds.
Even if we can’t replace a specialist surface exactly like-for-like, we’ll still always provide a safe, suitable surface for the area.
Throughout the works, we’ll make sure the area is safe while we’re working or if we need to leave the site.