Water firms are warned over risk to future supplies

SOUTH West Water is among a number of water companies which have been repeatedly warned about risks to their supplies, documents from regulators and the Government show.

- REBECCA SPEARE-COLE

Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Environment Department (Defra) notified 11 companies about security of supply risk concerns last year as part of the annual review of their water resources management plans, which cover the period from 2020 to 2045.

These were South West Water, Thames Water, South East Water, Anglian Water, Affinity Water, Southern Water, Cambridge Water, South Staffordshire Water, Portsmouth Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, and Albion Water.

The authorities raised concern over these companies’ performance in areas ranging from leakages and chemical pollution to unsustainable abstraction from the environment and demand management. It comes after the Government promised to introduce MOTs for water firms in a bid to prevent repeats of the situation that recently left thousands of South East Water customers in Kent and Sussex without supply.