(by Karma Loveday) Amidst a focus on asset health in the Water White Paper, UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has published the outputs from its work to identify A common definition and calculation of asset health . The project provides a framework and guidance which can be commonly applied to bring greater alignment to the assessment and management of asset health. UKWIR noted: “Understanding the health of assets has uses in both investment planning within water companies,

(by Karma Loveday) Portsmouth Water has published Introducing effective supervisory regulation, a report by Frank Grimshaw of Fast Track Squared, which incorporates the company’s own thoughts on the subject. This is presented as a contribution to the post White Paper debate. Portsmouth Water said it strongly supports the introduction of supervision, sees lots of benefits, but appreciates risks that need to be guarded against. These include extra complexity if supervision is

(by Karma Loveday) Small businesses in Scotland ranked water as the sector they are second-to-least satisfied with (see chart), in a survey by Consumer Scotland. The watchdog surveyed 700 small businesses (those with under 50 employees) about their engagement in and satisfaction with various services, from utilities to building and professional services. Key findings included:  Small businesses are just as likely as individual consumers — and in some cases, more likely — to

(by Karma Loveday) Thames Water’s Customer Challenge Group (CCG) has recommended that customer trust is monitored as a core performance measure — “not as a proxy for all external noise, but as a way of focusing attention on the quality and consistency of controllable actions that matter most to customers”. That appeared in the group’s 2025 annual report, which gave Thames a mixed review. Noting the extremely challenging context — featuring refinancing, a pending price appeal,

(by Karma Loveday) The Environment Agency has published a factual report setting out a timeline of how the 2025 drought developed in England and Wales. This is because the drought was significant, and manifested increased volatility in weather conditions resulting from climate change. The EA offered the following summary:  “The 18 months leading up to December 2024 were the wettest on record for England. Yet by mid-February 2025, the weather turned to settled and dry. The dry

(by Karma Loveday) The slow and non payment of fines by water companies has provoked questions in the House of Lords. In oral questions last week, Lord Sikka challenged the Government for allowing some payment plans to stretch out to 2030, citing 1200 criminal convictions across the industry. He said: “No statement to that effect has been made to Parliament. Can the minister explain why the Government continues to indulge criminal organisations?” For the Government, Baroness

(by Karma Loveday) Moody's Ratings has affirmed the Baa3 backed and underlying senior secured ratings of South East Water (Finance) — the financing subsidiary of South East Water —  but changed the outlook to negative from stable. Moody’s said the outlook change reflected “SEW's operational underperformance with regards to water supply resilience, at a time where the sector’s continued high social risk exacerbates political and media attention towards water company performan

(by Karma Loveday) Defra has issued its first post White Paper consultation —  on the regulatory framework for sludge applied to agriculture. This follows campaigning from green groups on public health and environmental grounds (41% of England’s rivers suffer from agricultural pollution), and the Independent Water Commissions recommendation that the treatment, storage and use of sludge should be moved into the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR) 2016. At present, 94.4%

(by Karma Loveday) The investment that higher water charges will pay for was very much front and centre of this year’s annual bill announcement. Water UK said household water bills in England and Wales will rise by an average of 5.4% — around £33 a year, or approximately £2.70 per month — from April, to pay for £20bn of investment in upgrading water and wastewater infrastructure in 2026/27. The rise is two percentage points above December’s official inflation figure and tak

(by Karma Loveday) Defra and Ofwat have assured the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that PR29 will remain on track despite parallel work to create a new regulator. Ofwat’s interim chief executive Chris Walters said: “We need a clear idea by the end of this year of what the methodology for the next price review will look like. That is what we are aiming to include in the transition plan, which we are expecting in March.” He explained: “It took us around 15 months of analysis,