News

We've reduced sewer flooding and leakage, invested hundreds of millions while offering lowest bills in Britain

We've released figures today (THURS) that show we're making good progress in areas that matter most to our customers.

Our half-year figures show we've made real progress in a number of areas that our customers have highlighted as being the most important to them, including:

• Reduction in internal sewer flooding of 38%;
• Reduction in external sewer flooding of almost 50%;
• Reduction in leakage by four million litres a day, and
• Reduction in water quality complaints of 12%.

To achieve this, we've invested £324m across the region in a range of projects designed to improve both clean and waste water, while continuing to offer our customers a combined average bill that is the lowest in Britain at less than £1 a day, and which is £32 lower than any other water company in England and Wales.

We're also doing more than ever to help customers who need it most by beating our target of helping 50,000 vulnerable customers with their bills.

We also announced that through running the business more efficiently, we've created some surplus land that we can sell. This will enable developers to build up to 1,000 new homes by 2020 and help to alleviate the housing shortage in our region. Profits from the land sales will be shared with our customers, helping to keep their bills low in the future too.

Sarah Bentley, Chief Customer Officer, said: “We’re really proud of the results we’ve announced today.  Our teams have worked incredibly hard to make improvements that matter most to our customers such as reducing sewer flooding and leakage, while continuing to offer the lowest average combined bills in Britain at under £1 a day.

“We are also pleased to be offering support to 50,000 of our most vulnerable customers.

“We know there’s always more to do though and our teams are really energised about delivering even more for our customers in the future.”

In recent announcements we also confirmed our plans to reduce our impact on the environment. In today’s figures we announced that we're now self-producing the equivalent of 38% of the energy we use from renewable sources, and that we plan to replace our fleet of vans with alternative fuel vehicles when feasible.