Welsh Water publishes Draft Business Plan

    RNS Number : 0108B
  Welsh Water Utilities Finance PLC
  11 August 2008
   

    News from Welsh Water
                                    11 August 2008 
    WELSH WATER PUBLISHES ITS DRAFT BUSINESS PLAN
    Flat bills and �1.5 billion investment programme

    Welsh Water has today submitted its Draft Business Plan to Ofwat, the water industry regulator. This is the first step in the 5-yearly
review that will determine standards, investment expenditure and customer bills for the next period 2010-2015. Over the coming months this
Draft Business Plan will be reviewed and challenged by Ofwat and others, and the Final Business Plan will then be published in April next
year.  
    Welsh Water is owned by Glas Cymru, which is unique amongst the UK utility companies in that it has no shareholders and it reinvests all
its financial surpluses for the benefit of Welsh Water's customers.
    In its Draft Business Plan, Welsh Water is proposing
    *     No real increase in average household bills after 2010 - the average bill for drinking water and sewerage will stay at around �390
per household or just over �1 a day, before adding on general inflation.
    *     A capital investment programme of �1.5 billion, before adding general inflation - equivalent to more than �1,000 per household -
continuing the current already high level of investment expenditure.
    Capital investment programme
    The �1.5 billion capital investment programme will be carried out over the five years between 2010 and 2015 and will deliver further
significant benefits for our customers and for the environment. Highlights include:
    *     Improvements to water treatment at 26 sites to provide further protection to the quality of drinking water (�153 million).
    *     Investment at 92 sites to protect the quality of river, coastal and shellfish waters (�106 million).
    *     Advanced waste treatment facilities at 4 sites to reduce energy costs and to reduce our "carbon footprint" by around 25% (�98
million).
    *     Ongoing investment to reduce the risk of repeat sewer flooding to properties (�37 million).
    *     An initial programme - Sustainable Urban Drainage - to start to remove surface water from entering our sewer network (�30
million).
    *     Phase II of our IT enabled change programme to improve efficiency and customer service (�90 million).
    *     New infrastructure to support economic development (�94 million).
    Final Business Plan
    Over the coming months the Draft Business Plan will be subject to detailed scrutiny and challenge by Ofwat, the Welsh Assembly
Government, and other regulators and stakeholders. We will also have to take into account a number of possible risks, including the very
uncertain economic environment which may have an adverse impact on our Final Business Plan. The Final Business Plan will be published in
April next year.
    Further details on Welsh Water's Draft Business Plan are available on the Company's website www.dwrcymru.com. We welcome views and
feedback on what we are proposing - it is essential that our plans for the coming years comprise the best possible package and balance
affordability with service standards and reliability.  
    
Ends

    Enquiries to the Welsh Water press office on 029 2055 6140

    Notes to Editors
    In Welsh Water we are only concerned with delivering safe and reliable drinking water and a dependable sanitation service to our
customers, protecting the environment from pollution from sewage and, crucially, looking after the water industry and the essential public
service it provides for future generations. Ever since Glas Cymru - a "not for profit" company with no shareholders - took over the
ownership of Welsh Water back in 2001 we have had no competing priorities such as making profits for shareholders.  
    Our Draft Business Plan sets out in detail what we want to do and achieve over the coming years. It has taken a team of experts drawn
from right across the water industry in Wales more than 18 months to prepare; the Draft Business Plan runs to more than 1,000 pages and
includes over 10,000 items of data and analysis. Informing all our work leading up to this Draft Business Plan has been the objective of
getting to the right balance between affordability on the one hand and quality and reliability of service on the other.
    Continuing investment programme
    Welsh Water employs a network of assets - reservoirs, treatment works, pumping stations, water mains and sewers - that would today cost
�19 billion to replace, over �10,000 per customer. Much of what we do day to day to deliver a high quality and reliable public service
involves operating and maintaining this enormous network of often very long life assets. Its performance is therefore key for the quality of
service we give our customers as well as our ability to protect the environment from pollution. That is why much of our Draft Business Plan
is concerned with what we propose to do and to spend on maintaining, renewing and, where necessary, upgrading this network of assets for the
benefit of our customers and protecting our environment.  
    The Draft Business Plan includes provision for upgrading a number of our water treatment works as nothing is more important than safe
drinking water; additional work on asset maintenance and renewal, although overall the network will continue to get older; delivering a
number of statutory environmental improvement schemes; additional resilience against the risk of flooding; and new treatment processes that
will improve our cost efficiency and reduce our "carbon footprint" by around 25%. The Plan also includes provision for tackling further
serious sewer flooding risk problems, the worst possible customer service failure, both through specific investment schemes and the
beginning of a long term strategy to reduce the amount of surface water entering our sewer network ("Sustainable Urban Drainage").  
    Affordability
    Prioritising the investment programme so that it could be financed and afforded by customers is the key feature of our Draft Business
Plan. We must make sure people can afford to pay for a public service as important and essential as drinking water and sanitation. This
matters especially in Wales because Welsh Water's average household bill is still around 15% higher than average - only because Welsh Water
employs more assets per customer than most other companies due to the geography of Wales. Moreover, average household incomes are lower than
elsewhere. Because we do not have any shareholders, we have been able to mitigate this serious disadvantage through our growing "customer
dividend" - �21 per customer this year - and by 2010 we will have paid "customer dividends" totalling �150 million.
    We believe we can deliver the �1.5 billion investment programme without having to put up bills on average by more than general inflation
because, due to our unique "not for profit" ownership, we believe we can finance the programme more efficiently than elsewhere and also
because we have set challenging efficiency targets for the business that will offset the rising interest bill on the additional money we
will have to raise from bond investors to fund the investment programme.


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