The Environment Agency is looking for water companies’ serious pollution incidents to “trend towards zero” by 2020, according to its annual Environmental Performance Assessment for all nine of England’s water and sewerage companies.

Ofwat's latest climate adaptation update report includes a commitment to introduce a new Bid Assessment Framework for the water companies to ensure that in-house solutions are not favoured at the expense of third party proposals.

Ofwat has today published its preliminary assessment of the costs and benefits of extending retail competition to household water customers – the research says customers would look to save an average of 25% for them to switch, a level of saving which the regulator said “is unlikely to be available.”

Today’s launch of the first global Natural Capital Protocol provides a timely route map for the water sector to future natural capital regulation, which should help companies scale up their plans, according to Robert Spencer, Director of Sustainability at AECOM.

Water and Floods Minister Rory Stewart has told Parliament that once an incumbent leaves the market and the new entrant enters, the incumbent company would not then be able to come back into that market or an individual non-household customer move back and forth between their previous provider and the new one.

Ofwat has warned that a post-Brexit scenario which foresees higher inflation, lower interest rates and lower growth, at the same time as their customers become poorer and find it harder to pay their bills, could pose a very significant challenge for the water sector in terms of customer legitimacy.