Other stories from last week

(by Karma Loveday)

Welsh Water has lifted for all customers the precautionary boil water notice imposed in parts of Rhondda Cynon Taf. This followed an issue with the Maerdy water treatment works.

Moody’s has affirmed the Baa1 Corporate Family Rating of Anglian Water and the Baa1 backed and underlying senior secured debt ratings of its financing subsidiary Anglian Water Services Financing. The outlook on both entities remains stable. Moody’s said the action followed the Competition and Markets Authority redetermination, which reduced Anglian Water's exposure to Outcome Delivery Incentive penalties for underperformance, in particular for total pollution incidents, and set more lenient targets for external sewer flooding, water supply interruptions and leakage. Moreover, the CMA increased the rate of return and granted expenditure allowances in line with company requests. Moody’s added that it expected Anglian Water and the wider group to continue to demonstrate progress on their de-leveraging trajectory in line with public commitments. The remaining £200m of the £500m equity injection pledged by shareholders in May 2025 is expected this month. 

The Environment Agency has published a position statement on using nature-based solutions (NBS) to support sustainable water resources – for instance, improvements to land management to promote retention of water; reconnecting flood plains to river channels; restoring wetlands; or constructing run-off attenuation features such as ponds. The Agency said it supports such actions as an enhancement to, rather than replacement for, actions based on abstraction reduction. It said NBS may be beneficial in reducing the quantity of some future sustainability reductions and in increasing the resilience of environmentally sensitive catchments whilst strategic water resource solutions are being implemented. Elsewhere the statement covered guiding principles; outcomes and objectives; benefits; and permits, consents and permissions.

Yorkshire Water has kicked off a two-year research project with UnifAI-Tech to create an AI model capable of predicting water quality in bathing water sites in near-real time.  Currently, testing for E.Coli and other bacteria are lab based, and it takes days to get the results. If successful, the AI project could allow water users to make a choice about taking a dip on the same day. 

Main Capital Partners has bought a majority stake in Ferranti Computer Systems, which provides meter-to-cash systems for utilities in the UK and across Europe. Main said this marked the start of a new phase of growth for Ferranti, focused on continued product innovation, international expansion, and targeted buy-and-build.