Investment Plans
Bristol Water’s Final Business Plan set out proposed service and investment levels and price limits. The company said it needed to invest £319 million in the five years to March 2015 by
- investing so that the essential infrastructure does not deteriorate
- having enough water available to meet growing demand, despite climate change
- cutting leakage by 10%
- making further water quality improvements
- providing greater security of supply in due course for hundreds of thousands of people
Our proposals mean investing over £1 million a week to 2015. After taking account of operating costs and related financing needs, less potential efficiencies, this would see the average yearly bill rise to £202 by 2015.
Investment plans 2010-15 with comparison to last period
The Investment plans are split into four main area below.
Essential infrastructure & leakage
A sustainable level of planned maintenance is vital to enable our wide range of assets to deliver the outputs required of them on a reliable basis.
Key projects
- Significant increase in planned maintenance for both underground and above ground assets
- Reduce leakage level by 10%
- Raise level of mains replacement to 67km per year
- Reduce interruptions to supply by 14%
- Increase rate of meter replacement
Growing demand
Increasing demand from a growing population requires, the lowest cost, the development of new sources, leakage reductions and additional storage and network capacity improvements. The population is expected to grow in our area by 40%.
Summary of schemes
- Increase yield from two Mendip sources
- Cut leakage further
- Return currently unused source back to operational use
- Prepare for proposed new reservoir at Cheddar
- Improve key areas of the network to maintain the capacity caused by repaid development
Resilience
Our aim is to ensure that by 2020 no centres of population over 25,000 people (or fewer where special operating factors apply) are critically dependent upon a single water supply asset. Currently 600,000 people are still living within this criterion. We proposed three schemes to take 236,000 from this number.
- North Bristol Support benefiting 185,000 customer
- Oldford scheme – benefiting 41,000 customers
- Tetbury scheme – benefiting 10,000 customers
Water quality
Excellent water quality is of paramount importance to our customers and is our primary objective.
Key projects
- Install U/V disinfection at 4 major works
- Renovate 59km of trunk mains to reduce discoloured water events
- Scheme to reduce the risk from nitrates at southern works
- Install new treatment process at Sherborne works
- 2 Catchment management schemes to reduce pesticide getting into raw water
