02 October 23
Affinity Water submit ambitious five-year business plan to Ofwat and invite customers to have their say
- Business Plan 2025-2030 shaped by thousands of customers and stakeholders
- Five-year plan details action Affinity Water will take to adapt to significant challenges posed by climate change, demand for water, population growth and taking care of the environment
- Affinity Water commits to reduce leakage and disruption to customers to record lows, improve customer services and further protection of chalk streams through river restoration and taking less water from chalk groundwater in £2.12billion plan
- Further support pledged for customers who may struggle to pay their bill
- Customers invited to have final say on plan at Your Water Your Say event on 18 October 2023.
The UK’s largest water only supplier, Affinity Water has submitted its five-year Business Plan for 2025 – 2030 to water industry regulator, Ofwat.
Affinity Water’s Business Plan details the action the company will take to address the significant challenges posed by climate change, demand for water, population growth and to take care of the environment.
Director of Regulation and Strategy, Liv Walton said: “Since 2021, we have engaged with thousands of customers and stakeholders to really understand what they want to see from their local water company.
“The feedback we’ve received has helped to shape our Business Plan, which is the first five years that deliver on our long-term ambitions to improve the environment, increase our resilience and improve the service we provide to the customers and communities we serve.
“It is our most ambitious plan to date and represents an investment of £2.12 billion between 2025 – 2030 to ensure we can meet the challenges we face and take care of our environment for our communities now and in the future.
“We have significantly improved our performance over the last five years. We are on track to deliver the some of the largest percentage reductions in leakage in the water industry, we are maintaining industry leading performance in providing high-quality water and we continue to reduce disruption for customers caused by supply interruptions and step-up support for those who may be struggling through help with their bills.
“We are delivering on all of our environmental commitments through river restoration schemes, biodiversity improvements and taking less from the environment.
“However, we know there is much more we need to do and our Business Plan 2025-2030 is the next step of our journey to go further and faster than ever before.”
Plan highlights – our commitments 2025-2030
- Reduce leakage by 31% (reduction from 2019/20 baseline)
- Reduce individual demand for water by 16%
- Reduce water taken from chalk groundwater by a further 35 million litres a day (135 million litres a day reduction in total since the 1990s)
- Reduce operational emissions by 55,800 tonnes of CO2e to help meet Net Zero ambitions
- Reduce water supply interruptions to 3 minutes, 40 seconds (based on the average minutes of interruptions over three hours across our customer base)
- Maintain industry leading water quality performance by investing £76million in water quality treatment upgrades
- Support more customers struggling to pay and extend our social tariff to 150,000 customers and continue with tariff trials to help make bills fairer
- Further improvements to our natural environment through river restoration schemes, biodiversity improvements and catchment management
- Delivering the strategic regional water resources across our region, which are scheduled for preparatory work between 2025 and 2030 and delivery from 2030 to 2035 and beyond
Have your say
Affinity Water is inviting customers and stakeholders to have their final say on their plans on 18 October from 6pm – 8pm. The event will be online and hosted by an independent chair. You can register for the event on eventbrite.
Customers can also submit their questions prior to the meeting to yourwateryoursay@ccwater.org.uk, stating clearly that the question is for Affinity Water, and whether they’re unable to attend or they’re attending, but would prefer the Consumer Council for Water to ask questions on customer’s behalf.