SES Water has submitted its Business Plan to regulator Ofwat for the first five years of a broader 25-year strategy, setting out long-term goals to deliver more for its customers, the environment and the local community.
It’s a balanced yet stretching plan, which makes well considered investment in the interests of customers today and helps ensure the business builds resilience for customers of the future. At the heart of the plan is the Company’s industry-leading approach to the use of technology, building on its digital strategy and position as having the UK’s first fully smart water network, with aspirations of becoming the first fully smart water company.
Future investment will continue to allow SES Water to monitor and manage its network of water treatment works, pumping stations and underground pipe network more closely than ever before, helping it to respond to issues and fixing them before they cause disruption to customers.
The plan has strong ambition, setting out how SES Water will continue to be among the best in the industry in areas that matter most to its customers, including: water quality, leakage reduction, supply resilience and environmental sustainability.
The plan has been influenced by SES Water’s customers from across its supply area, through an ongoing process of research and insight gathering. This research and engagement programme, and how it has informed the plan, has been challenged throughout by the Company’s independent Customer Scrutiny Panel and Environmental Scrutiny Panel.
In addition, SES Water – a drinking water only company – has made sure it’s consistent with other water companies, by using research carried out by Ofwat and the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) across the industry into customer priorities.
The plan outlines commitments across four key areas, which reflects its customers’ priorities:
- Provide high quality water from sustainable sources
- Deliver resilient water supplies from source to tap with minimal waste
- Help to reduce customers’ water footprint and charge a fair and affordable price for what is used
- Improve the environment and have a positive impact on the local area
The Company will also address the challenges faced from climate change, and the needs of a growing population in what is already classified by the Environment Agency as a seriously water stressed region.
Between 2025 and 2030 the Company will spend £413m, an increase of £13.3m per year compared to the 2020 to 2025 period. This is a combination of the base spend to maintain and run the business (£360.2m) and additional enhancement spend (£52.8m) to achieve the ambitions set out in the Company’s long-term delivery strategy.
The enhancement spend will include: meeting new legal and regulatory requirements, making water supply sites more resilient to changing weather patterns and improving performance for customers.
To support this significant investment and underpin the Company’s financial resilience, additional equity will be required at the end of AMP 7 and into AMP 8.
SES Water Chief Executive Officer, Ian Cain, said: “We’ve prepared an ambitious plan tailored to deliver the needs of our customers as the water industry strives to transform its services, deliver new legal and regulatory requirements and build the trust of its customers; something that will be essential if we are to successfully deliver many of our ambitious short and long-term targets. Our aim is to continue leading in key areas of innovation and performance, as we deliver our plans to play a meaningful role ensuring the industry is fit for the future. There is a great deal of work for us to do, but as a small, local company which is already performing strongly in the areas that matter most to our customers, we’re confident we can deliver our commitments, empower our customers and work with our communities to enhance nature and improve lives.”
To read the Business Plan in full please visit: www.seswater.co.uk/businessplan
