Thames Water has engaged with a record one million customers to help develop an ambitious five year business plan for the upcoming 2020-2025 AMP7 investment programme to be unveiled next week.
Water companies in England and Wales are required to submit business plans to regulator Ofwat every five years - the company started to engage its customers nearly three years ago, on topics that included customer service, leaks, wastewater and bills.
Thames Water said it wanted to understand as much as possible on these and other issues of concern as early as possible, in order to shape the plan from the beginning.
Given the company’s diverse customer base across the region, Thames said it had also been important to gather feedback from all groups through a variety of channels so that an accurate picture could be had.
This included asking for feedback through surveys, text messages, online and face-to-face engagement with customers, including high usage and small businesses, developers, customers in vulnerable circumstances, different age groups, low income and those from various faith groups.
Innovative techniques were also used, for example, a ‘shape your water future’ tool which gave a range of options for trade-offs between service and price, analysis around ties between water services and happiness, and futurology which anticipates a changing society and the impact on water requirements.
Steve Robertson, CEO of Thames Water, said:
“We’d like to thank the record-breaking number of people who have helped us shape our five-year plan. Our proposals are a true reflection of what our customers have told us they want to see and we appreciate all the time they’ve taken to give us their opinions and advice.”
The customer priorities gathered are:
- Delivering a personal, proactive customer experience: pre-empting their needs, treating people on an individual basis and causing minimum disruption when things go wrong.
- A safe and dependable water service: provide a high quality, reliable water service, fix leaks and help customers with their own leaks.
- A safe and dependable wastewater service: reducing the number of sewer flooding incidents and helping individuals with their blocked pipes.
- Be resilient: prepare for the future by helping customers use less water, ensure enough clean water can be supplied and guarantee wastewater systems can cope better.
- Be a responsible business: help customers in vulnerable circumstances, make charges affordable for others and keep the bills stable. Use renewable energy, contribute to the local community and be transparent.
The water companies' final Price Review 2019 proposals, including Thames, will be published on 3rd September for Ofwat to review.
During the current 2015 – 2020 AMP6 investment programme, Thames, the UK’s biggest water and wastewater services provider, has invested nearly £5 billion, the largest in the UK water industry.
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