Southern Water has today submitted a record £7.8 billion AMP8 Business Plan to Ofwat, marking its greatest ever single investment in the environment and creating an estimated 5,000 jobs across the region.

Launching the proposed Business Plan (Price Review 24) for the 2025-30 regulatory period, the water company said it sets an ambition beyond anything attempted by the company before. It will deliver major improvements in water resilience, wastewater treatment, and customer service, as well as enhancement and protection of the environment.

“To deliver this major and ambitious plan, our customer bills will increase to pay for this future investment,” the utility said.

Southern Water says it faces major challenges in its region that it needs to plan for and manage in the longer-term, from increased consumption through an expected population growth of 3.2 % over the next 10 years, approximately 2.2 million more people, to the impact of climate change with more volatile weather and risks of drought. The plan is the first major step in Southern Water’s longer-term strategy to 2050.

This includes the single largest investment made to date of £3.3 billion in improving the environment, which will see the company:

• reduce its impact on rivers by cutting the amount of water it takes from them
• build new longer-term water sources
• upgrade its largest water and wastewater treatment sites
• boost water quality
• reduce storm overflows
• support new housing developments.

Key investment highlights include:

£3.4 billion to be invested in water supply services, including:

• £320 million to upgrade its four largest water supply works to improve resilience benefitting 62% of customers.
• Reducing the amount of water the firm takes from the environment to supply as drinking water – by 50 million litres a day by 2030, a reduction of 10% from 2022.
• The construction of water recycling plants and new pipelines to help deliver more than 189 million litres of extra water per day by 2035.

£4.1 billion investment in wastewater services, including:

• £682m to reduce the use of storm overflows by up to 20% by 2030 across 179 priority sites.
• Reducing pollution incidents by 50% and eliminate serious pollution incidents by installing new mains and increasing power resilience at pumping stations
• £600m to upgrade 38 wastewater treatment sites to remove harmful nutrients and improve the quality of water put back into the environment and help accommodate over 60,000 new homes by 2030.
• £348 million to provide trusted and easy-to-use customer services through investing in a new customer relationship management and billing system

Southern Water said the plan has been developed following extensive input from 25,000 customers.

The company will soon be publishing a detailed proposal on how it will tackle storm overflows in 179 priority bathing and shellfish sites across its region.

Lawrence Gosden, Southern Water’s CEO, said:

“Our proposed record £7.8bn investment over 2025-2030 aims to build on the foundations of our turnaround plan where we promised to deliver a short, sharp, ambitious performance improvement by 2025.

“The investment will ensure significant improvements to the environment in our region including improving water quality in 1,000km of river by upgrading our wastewater treatment works. It will also deliver major improvements in water resilience, in the way we treat wastewater, enhance customer service and increase the number of jobs in our region by an estimated 5,000.

“We know that our past performance has not lived up to our customers’ and our regulators’ expectations. We acknowledge those failings and are doing everything we can to address them. Customer bills will increase but we will mitigate the effects by spreading increases over the regulatory period and significantly increasing our support for vulnerable customers.

“This is right for our environment, communities, investors, and above all for our customers. We look forward to working with Ofwat on their draft determination of our plan next year.”

To deliver the plan, Southern Water’s customer bills will increase to pay for future investment.

For customers receiving water and wastewater services from Southern Water from 2025, average yearly bills will increase by £230 per year (44%) between 2025 and 2030.

Wastewater only customers will see average yearly bills increase by £85 per year (27%) between 2025 to 2030. Water only customers will see average yearly bills increase by £145 per year (69%) between 2025 to 2030.

The company provides up to 45% discount on bills for its most vulnerable customers.