Pennon Group, owners of South West Water and Bristol Water, has welcomed the announcement by Ofwat outlining a potential c.£130 million of additional, accelerated investment for South West Water.
Pennon said it will now review and feedback on Ofwat’s proposals over the consultation period to 24 April 2023.
The merger of Bristol Water into South West Water’s licence completed on 1 February 2023. The total investment outlined covers the South West Water and Bristol Water areas.
The new investments will be delivered over the period to 2030, with £52 million to be accelerated into the period to 2025. This is in addition to the existing AMP7 2020-25 business plan and Green Recovery commitments, and ongoing reinvestment of outperformance in the WaterFit and water resilience initiatives.
This brings the total allowed investment programme to 2025 to c.£1.45 billion - the additional investment will not impact customer bills in the current regulatory period.
Of the total £98 million wastewater accelerated investment outlined to 2030, £35 million will fund storm overflow and nutrient neutrality schemes to 2025, further supporting the delivery of the WaterFit plans. alongside growth and development in the region.
South West Water said it is already making good progress through the WaterFit programme on improving raw water quality across its catchments as it works towards 2025 river and coastal water quality commitments including:
- Reducing releases from storm overflows to an average of 20 per asset, per year by 2025
- Reducing by one third the impact the utility has on rivers - improving Rivers Not Achieving Good ecological status (RNAGs) from 19% to 12% by 2025.
A total of £32 million in accelerated water efficiency investment has been outlined to 2030, of which £17 million will be delivered to 2025 to support customers in Cornwall and Bristol reduce their usage, alongside cutting leakage from customers’ pipes.
Susan Davy, Pennon's Chief Executive Officer commented:
“Getting the green light from Ofwat to bring forward a number of schemes ahead of the next price review will enable us to continue going further and faster to reduce the use of storm overflows, protect natural ecosystems, our beaches and rivers and support house building.
“Alongside our existing £75 million investment to boost water resilience with innovative solutions such as repurposing redundant quarries and mines to store water, and desalination, we are also working at pace to ensure customers and visitors to our region have continuity of supply.
“There’s never been a more important time to invest to offset the impacts of drought, climate change, population growth and increasing demand for our services.”
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