Thames Water will likely leak more water for this year than it previously told investors and the UK’s water regulator, it has been revealed.
In the company’s industry-mandated service commitment plan, the embattled firm pushed up its leakage forecasts for this year from 550m litres a day to 585m and between 512m and 530m litres next year – up from the 507m previously forecast.
Thames Water said the heavy rainfall, combined with a high water table meant its “infrastructure sometimes
struggles to cope with the volume of sewage, particularly during heavy rainfall.”
Despite widespread claims the company has failed to adequately invest in infrastructure, Thames Water has previously argued London’s corrosive soil and the age of its infrastructure – with nearly half of the capital’s mains more than 100 years old – is to blame for its leakage record.
“Our original turnaround plan has not delivered the necessary improvements as quickly as we all want,” the 21-page plan says.
Where previously the firm said it used a “trial and error” approach to addressing leaks across London that resulted in fragmented decision-making and inefficient improvement measuring.
The company now says it has an improved strategy – the same one as before with an additional team to “improve end-to-end processes and field efficiency,” that it believes could reduce leakages by nearly a quarter (23 per cent) over three years.
The additional investment in fixing leaks specifically is projected to be £200m.
Thames Water’s cycle of delivering miserable performance for investors and customers has been playing on repeat for years now, resulting in an £18bn debt pile, major investment write-downs, government enquiries and high-profile failures.
Westminster has quietly put legal safeguards in place to shore up any funds it may be forced to support Thames with in the future and the industry’s regulator Ofwat is tightening the standards to which UK utilities must perform.
The regulator revealed that from April, water companies could be fined up to a tenth of their turnover for poor customer service.