Portsmouth Water has selected Castle Water as its partner to provide billing and associated services for its business customers in the run-up to the introduction of competition in water retail services in 2017 – at which point the water company will exit the business retail market.
From 1st April 2016 Castle Water, a specialist business retailer, will bill, handle calls and undertake other retail activities for business customers, initially on behalf of Portsmouth Water, but in their own right from April 2017 when the competitive market is expected to open. At that point Portsmouth Water intends to exit the business customer retail market.
The change only impacts water retail services for business customers.
Portsmouth Water will continue to provide retail services to household customers which represent 95% of its customer base. It will also continue to supply water to all of its existing customers, and will remain responsible for water abstraction, treatment and maintaining its network of pipes. There will be no changes to the cost of services as a result of this change or to the quality and reliability of the water supply.
Neville Smith, Managing Director of Portsmouth Water said:
“From April 2017 business customers in our region and elsewhere will be able to choose their water retailer. We have considered whether to set up a separate business to compete in this national market or to pass our customers to a specialist provider. We decided that working with a specialist provider represents the most sensible and cost effective solution for a company of Portsmouth Water’s size and for our customers. This will enable us to focus on our core activity of the reliable supply of high quality water.”
“Castle Water stands out as a company that, like Portsmouth Water, prides itself on offering high levels of service at a low price and is therefore ideally placed to satisfy the retail needs of our business customers”.
John Reynolds, CEO of Castle Water, said:
“Castle Water was founded to participate in both the English and Scottish markets for business water supplies. We have become one of the leading independent suppliers to business water customers in Scotland, and we are excited about the opportunity to work with Portsmouth Water going forwards.”
Business customers’ are being notified directly of the change, although in the vast majority of cases they will not be required to take further action.
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