A breakdown of the review of our Water Resources Management Plan following a letter from our regulators.

Earlier this year, we submitted an annual review of our Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) – a plan we create every five years, which sets out how we will provide a high-quality, secure and reliable water supply affordably and sustainably over the next 25 years.

It is important we have this plan in place as we face several challenges to continue to provide high-quality drinking water to customers. These include a growing population and climate change.

Our annual review

This review was carried out against the plan we submitted in 2019 and is a report of our performance against a set of metrics set out in our plan.

The review aims to understand whether we would have been able to supply our customers with water should we experience the rare occurrence of a 1 in 200-year drought.

It outlines whether we are exceeding, meeting or lagging on performance as expected when our WRMP was published.

It also covers the conditions of the year past, reflecting on anything that may have been unforeseen such as weather impacts, like drought, or any operation issues.

What the review found

In 2023-24, we reported a negative supply-demand balance in our water resource zones.

A negative supply-demand balance indicates that if we had performed in the same way during a 1 in 200-year drought, we would have struggled to maintain water supply.

Whilst this may seem alarming, had a severe drought occurred, our plans would have been adjusted to ensure that demand was met. This was demonstrated in 2022, when we postponed planned outages (work carried out on our network leaving water supply unavailable) to ensure customer supplies were not jeopardised during that summer’s drought.  

In October 2024, our regulators, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, wrote to us to request further information about our performance and what actions we would be taking.

Below is a summary of the concerns highlighted and our response:

• Leakage greater than forecast – we have met all of the targets set by Ofwat that we have been funded to achieve.
• Metering levels slightly behind forecast - we have created an action plan to close this gap over the next few years. This can be found in our full response to the joint regulatory letter linked below. 
• Outage greater than planned - we have regrettably had a series of unplanned outages in Cambridge as a result of withdrawing borehole sources from supply to confidently maintain standards. Despite our best efforts to mitigate the impact of these actions, the overall yield from our sources has reduced. We are considering treatment options to improve resilience in what is a challenging operational regime.
• Supply scheme delivery delivered later than planned – we have three schemes in progress that are behind schedule due to a range of delivery delays. We have created an action plan to get these sources into supply at the earliest opportunity.

Our full response to the joint regulatory letter can be viewed here.

What we are doing to improve

Much has changed since we prepared our Water Resources Management Plan in 2019.

In 2024, the regulatory and policy baselines were altered, and targets, assumptions and commitments moved on.  

Our Water Resources Management Plan 2024 (WRMP24) reflects these changes and takes into account the actions and investment proposals set out in our business plan submission to Ofwat.

Our proposed programme for the Cambridge supply area focuses on managing water demand and exploring new supply options.

Our delivery aims include:

• A 50% reduction in leakage from 2017-18 levels by 2040 – tripling the rate of reduction by 2030
• A 9% reduction in forecasted non-household water use by 2037
• Household water use of 110 litres per person per day by 2050 – down by 30 litres
• Developing alternative supply options – working with Anglian Water on water transfer from Grafham Reservoir and building a new reservoir in the Cambridgeshire Fens

Our engagement with customers shows that they prefer a plan that focuses on reducing demand for water. There is also majority support for universal metering.

We are very conscious of the impact the current cost of living crisis is having on household budgets, and we are committed to making sure we have the appropriate support mechanisms in place to support our customers and protect those that vulnerable, as well as those with large families.

To find out more about our Water Resources Management Plans and learn how we are using your bills to secure your water future, click here.