Ofwat agrees Tideway licence changes

Following consultations in April and December last year, Ofwat has amended Thames Tideway Tunnel’s licence and financing arrangements to take account of Covid impacts and historically low interest rates.

\

Under the new arrangements, costs to customers will no longer be affected by changing interest rates and additional costs caused by Covid-19 will be shared between customers and investors. Ofwat said: “The impact on bills of the project overall is still expected to be within the £20-£25 range first predicted when Tideway was announced in 2015, and these changes mean that bills will fall slightly this year.”

As a single large construction project, in the challenging environment of the centre of London, Ofwat said Tideway was impacted by Covid “far more extensively than any other water company with delays in construction and increases in costs”. It endorsed Tideway’s response to safeguard the project, arguing this was “in the best interests of customers and other options could have ended up costing customers a lot more”.