Pennon Group, owner of South West Water, has announced that will not be applying for the Final Determination its AMP6 business plan received from Ofwat on Friday to be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority.

Pennon said the Determination brought to close a successful price review process for South West Water, saying “it represents an excellent outcome for investors and for customers.”

 Over 84% of customers supported the plan which was first published in December 2013. It was recognised as a high quality plan, identified as ‘enhanced’ by water industry Ofwat and fast-tracked for an early Draft Determination earlier this year.

Pennon said that the alignment of the Final Determination with both the company’s business plan and Draft Determination had enabled the company to respond positively and promptly at this early stage.

In the Final Determination Ofwat made the following comments on the South West Water Business Plan:

‘‘… the Business Plan stood apart from the other companies. For example, in its Business Plan South West Water set out a Board pledge to share the benefits of success fairly between customers and investors…”

“… we have had to make minimal changes to the company’s plan to protect customer’s interests and act in line with our other statutory duties.”

Overall Totex expenditure levels allowed by the Final Determination means that South West Water’s planned investment programme in AMP6 is unchanged at £868m. This compares to £730m in AMP5 (2012/13 price base).

The water company has proposed a new performance sharing and independently monitored reporting framework  known as WaterShare which calculates and apportions between customers and stakeholders.. The Watershare framework will track and report on performance annually via the publication of a scorecard that summarises performance and will allow for “the sharing of net benefits with customers in a timely manner.”