Our journey continues...
We've been on a long journey with our customers as we've built our plans for the future. And the people of the West Country have sure had a lot to say, and we've learnt a lot from what they've been telling us. Here we present our plans for 2020 - 2025, which have been built with our customers. But this is just the start of the journey...
Affordable bills for all...
As part of our plans, we're committing to lower the average bill by 5%, keeping them lower than they were in 2015. We will also continue to eliminate water poverty with low bills and more access to social tariffs.
"It's time for the local water companies to take centre stage."
Summary of our plan
To make it easy, we have summarised our plan on an interactive page.
So what are we going to do?
- Customer excellence
- Inclusive services
- Affordability for all
- Protecting the environment
- Improving communities
- Promoting water efficiency
- Reducing leakage
- Improving water quality
- Reducing supply interruptions
- Boosting protection
Making sure you get the best possible experience every time you need us, so we can remain the best water company for customer service and aim to be the best utility company.
How we will achieve this:
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Make it easier for you to find out what you need from us by offering more channels and self–serve options to contact us. This will allow you to find out what you need to know at a time that suits you.
- Reduce our bills, and make sure you understand how we are measuring our performance so you are happy that your money is being well spent.
- Continue to be the most trusted utility company.
- Make sure our colleagues have the knowledge and technology to provide you with great
- customer care, and ensure you get the information when you need it.
- Make improvements to our billing system so we know if you need additional help.
- We will simplify processes for developers and make sure they get everything they need from our online portal so they can finish their jobs quickly.
- Meet developer service standards.
- Improve the information we give to developers so they know what choices are available to them.
Meeting the needs of all customers, especially those who need that extra bit of help with an aim of reaching up to 8,000 more customers who may benefit from our extra care services.
How we will achieve this:
- Treble the number of customers who receive extra care through our Priority Services Register.
- Carefully share data with other utilities to help us identify those who may need extra help.
- Expand our innovative partnership with Western Power Distribution to ensure vulnerable customers are recognised across the energy sector.
- Work with community groups to promote the support we have available.
- Make sure customers on the register are satisfied with our services and still receiving the support that they need.
Keeping bills as low as possible while delivering excellent customer service, so we continue to ensure we have no customers in water poverty.
How we will achieve this:
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We will use our range of social tariffs to ensure we have no customers in water poverty.
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Continue to work to help reduce bills for those who struggle to pay.
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Continue to find and work closely with debt advice partners to provide free advice to our customers.
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Review the presentation of our bill to make sure it is easy to understand.
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Do more work to ensure properties with a water supply, but registered as empty are genuine, so we can reduce the number of properties not billed to 1.8%.
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We will also support retailers to bill business properties.
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Improve the number of people who say we provide value for money to 83%.
We will improve and protect habitats for wildlife and water sources.
How we will achieve this:
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We are working closely with other organisations such as the Environment
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Agency to ensure you and your local area benefit from our work, particularly through the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP).
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We are setting biodiversity and raw water quality targets to demonstrate that we are protecting the environment for the future.
- We will continue to increase biodiversity at our sites by actively working to ensure plants and wildlife can thrive.
We want to continue to play our part in your local community with a programme of activities and initiatives as well as working with local partners to help deliver our plans. Our stakeholders will decide if we are doing good work in your local area.
How we will achieve this:
- Improve education and awareness of water issues including via school talks and Bristol Water Youth Board initiatives.
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Greater role in community leadership including through our water fountains project, following the success of fountains opened in Millennium Square and Queens Square.
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Continued support for the Bristol Refill campaign.
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Academic partnerships, such as our water efficiency test site with the University of West of England.
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Contribution to the Bristol City Mayor and West of England Combined Authority Regional strategies, including the active roadworks initiative.
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Increasing satisfaction with our community engagement including our support for festivals and community events.
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Improving our lakes and recreational facilities.
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Helping to improve wildlife on land where we are carrying out works.
Work with Wessex Water to improve our joint billing messages, and environmental impact.
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Form an active network to share best practice on resource efficiency with west of England utility companies.
Working together to ensure we reduce water wastage - we will install more meters to help more of us to be water efficient.
How we will achieve this:
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Promote water efficiency to encourage a 5% reduction in your everyday water use – from 142 litres per person per day to 135 litres.
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Increase the percentage of properties with a meter to 75%.
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Provide more information to allow you to track and manage your water usage
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Continue working with the University of the West of England to better understand water usage, and understand worldwide trends to help you reduce your usage.
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We will be a local leader, bringing organisations together to address water efficiency, plastic waste and energy efficiency.
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Support scientific and educational projects on water conservation so we become a community leader in this area.
Recognising that tackling leakage is one of your key priorities, we are setting tough targets to reduce leakage through a number of methods including replacing more than 60 miles of pipes.
How we will achieve this:
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Reduce leakage by a further 15% from 43 mega litres per day to 36.5 mega litres, to reduce treatment, distribution, and our need to take water from other natural sources.
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We will replace more than 60 miles of pipes, fix leaks quicker and find and fix more of the smaller leaks which are not visible above ground.
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We will invest in new technology to achieve our promises.
Making sure we provide you with safe, clean water to stop it occasionally looking, smelling or tasting odd by upgrading pipework, improving your environment and working with farmers.
How we will achieve this:
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We will continue to maintain and upgrade our treatment works so they continue to provide fresh, clean water.
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We will improve water treatment and customer information to reduce calls about water that does not smell right, and we will replace pipework which leads to discoloured water.
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We will replace lead pipes supplying high risk properties such as preschools and nurseries.
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We will help our local farmers to improve the quality of water by helping them to manage their land, and reduce the effects of pesticides used in the countryside.
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We will improve raw water quality and biodiversity across the Mendips.
Making sure you always have water running to your tap, and when this doesn’t happen, reducing the amount of time it takes to fix it.
How we will achieve this
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Improve the effectiveness of our network by targeting problem pipes and improving our ability to re-route water.
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Introducing new initiatives to broaden our knowledge, including the use of smart data such as installing hundreds of pipe sensors to quickly detect issues or trends.
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Further investment to reduce mains bursts by targeting areas more prone to leakage and interruptions including the use of innovative projects to improve supplies.
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Reduce the number of mains bursts by 6%.
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Continue to use innovative and new technologies to further reduce supply interruptions.
Making sure even fewer people face the threat of having no water for more than 24 hours when things go wrong, and not restricting your water supply if we have a drought.
How we will achieve this:
- Protect an extra 550,000 customers from supply interruptions lasting more than 24 hours.
- We will continue to manage water resources carefully. The last water restrictions during a drought were in 1991.
93% of our customers say this is what they want and need from their local water company. Download a copy of the Bristol Water Challenge Panel's Report
We've been here for six generations!
So, we probably served your great-great-great-great grandparents, and we continue to serve you and your family. We'll continue to give more back and pop up where you least expect us.
Download the Plan...
What next?
September 2018
On 3 September 2018, all water companies in the UK submit their business plans for 2020 - 2025 to the water regulator, Ofwat.
April 2019
On 1 April we will submit revised evidence following Ofwat's initial assessment.
July 2019
In July 2019, Ofwat will have published its draft determination of all the business plans. Some draft determinations will be published in March/ April 2019.
December 2019
In December, Ofwat publishes its final determinations.
Revised April 2019
In September 2018, we published our business plan promising cheaper bills, industry leading customer service and reduce water leakage. Following an initial review by our regulator, Ofwat, we have now revised some sections of the evidence for our plan. The changes are really in the detail so we will still be reducing bills, delivering industry leading customer service, and reducing leakage.
Bristol Water Clearly Resilient
For more information and to see our evidence for this plan, follow the link below