Water resources

Sustainable management of the water resources we use is vital for protecting the environment and securing the supply of drinking water in the event of climate change. We work to 25-year plans which help us forecast and manage likely impacts on supply and demand, including the effects of climate change. We have published our draft water resources management plan for 2009 for consultation. This provides a comprehensive statement of our water supply and demand forecasts to 2035, and the actions we plan to take around water supply sustainability. You can see the plan, and make comments on it, by clicking here.

We reduce water usage through tackling leakage, promoting customer efficiency and increasing the level of water metering. We have significantly reduced leakage from our network of water supply pipes over the last 15 years, more than halving it from 960 to 468 million litres per day between 1993 and 2007. This has been due to investment in areas such as better automated detection of leakage, managing network pressure and providing a freephone leak reporting service and a free supply pipe repair service to customers. In 2007/08, we outperformed our regulator Ofwat’s 12-month rolling leakage target of 465 megalitres per day with a result of 462 megalitres per day.

We actively promote the efficient use of water by our customers through publicity and education initiatives - we host 10,000 visits to our environmental classrooms each year- as well as trialling innovative techniques of water reduction. In the last ten years we have distributed over 550,000 cistern devices free of charge to reduce flush volumes and provided over 20,000 discounted water butts. We have carried out around 400 “visit and fix” household audits – see the case study for more information. Additionally, we last year  promoted water efficiency to 14,000 farms, parks and gardens by issuing special water efficiency leaflets.

We also undertook joint research with Liverpool John Moores University last year to identify the water and energy saving potential of aerated shower heads and this is being expanded into a wider customer study to look at acceptability of these devices and potential savings in terms of cost and the environment.

Water metering is a significant driver in reducing consumption. Typically households reduce their demand by 10 per cent when metered. All new properties have had water meters since 1989 and we also offer a free meter option. A quarter of a million households have taken this up since 2000. Currently, 21% of households are being metered in our region.