Water resources for the future

By 2050, water companies across the UK will need to find an additional 1.1 billion litres of water every day to keep up with growing demand. This increase is driven by rising needs in industry, agriculture, power generation, and other vital sectors.

Our commitment to action

Using water wisely

Leakage is a top priority for our customers and communities.
Wasted water is not just a resource issue – it can also make it harder to engage people in water efficiency initiatives. That’s why we’ve made strong progress in reducing leaks, which has helped build positive relationships with our customers and supported our water-saving goals.

We’re using innovative solutions to detect and repair leaks more effectively than ever before.
We’ve transformed our ‘Find and Fix’ activities by the use of advanced technology such as drones, which help us spot leaks that would otherwise go unnoticed. To further improve our performance, we’ve brought pipe-laying teams in-house, giving us more control over the renewal and repair of our mains pipes. This not only speeds up our mains renewal programme but also reduces our reliance on external suppliers.

Smart meters are a key part of our strategy to empower customers and reduce waste.
Thanks to support from Ofwat and Defra, we’re rolling out smart meters across our region at an accelerated pace. These meters allow us to proactively identify potential leaks, helping to protect customers’ properties and reduce their water bills while also lowering overall leakage.

In 2025, we achieved our AMP7 target of installing 157,000 smart meters as part of our Green Recovery Smart Metering Programme.

We’re also excited about our new partnership with Kraken Technologies.
This collaboration will help our teams spend more time providing quality advice and support to customers, enabling them to make smarter decisions about water use. Together, we’re working to reduce household water consumption and support a more sustainable future for our region.

With the help of a new innovative partnership with Nectar, the UK’s largest and most recognised multi-partner loyalty programme, we are testing how customers react to points incentives to reduce their water consumption. We’re rewarding smart metered customers with Nectar points for positive behaviour change, and each customer’s water usage is linked to their Nectar card, allowing them to collect Nectar points.

The partnership aims to:

The partnership is funded by Ofwat and is currently an 18-month trial. We’re aiming to amass 25,000 demographically representative customers on the trial. It’s early days, and there’s a lot more we need to do, but early results are looking promising.