Water UK, the trade association for the water industry representing all of the water and wastewater companies across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has promised support for more than 3 million households with their bills as part of a financial package of affordability support worth more than £4.1 billion over the next five years.
Most supported households will either receive ‘social tariffs’ or ‘WaterSure’ charges that will reduce their water bills. Customers who are struggling to pay their bills can also receive a range of support measures including payment breaks and debt forgiveness.
This largest-ever affordability support will be accompanied by record-breaking investment, approved by the regulator Ofwat in December 2024. Water companies will invest around £20 billion from April 2025 to March 2026, the highest ever level of expenditure in a single year, and the first in a five-year programme of investment worth £104 billion up to 2030.
The investment will help to build 9 new reservoirs and 9 new water transfer schemes, upgrade the capacity of 1,700 wastewater treatment works to reduce pollution and improve and protect more than 15,000 kilometres of rivers across England and Wales.
This record level of investment follows more than a decade in which bills have fallen in real terms. Following this increase, the association said that water bills are now only around 5% higher than they were in 2010 in real terms.
Government has taken steps to ensure funds raised by increased water bills are guaranteed only to pay for investment in things that are genuinely new and genuinely needed, such as meeting targets for our water and sewerage system, and represent value for money. If improvements aren’t delivered, then customer bills will automatically be reduced by the regulator.
Targeted support is also available for low-income customers who use a lot of water for essential family or health reasons through the WaterSure scheme. And, more broadly, a variety of measures (not just financial) is available through the Priority Services Register for a wide range of people, from those with sight, hearing, or mobility difficulties, to parents with babies under 12 months old.
Customers will now pay an average of £1.65 a day for drinking water that is consistently ranked as equal highest quality in the world. Money raised by bills also funds sewerage services and water used for businesses. Customers are paying £1.32 a day in 2024-25. Full details about the new average bills can be found here.
David Henderson, Water UK Chief Executive, said:
“We understand increasing bills is never welcome and, while we urgently need investment in our water and sewage infrastructure, we know that for many this increase will be difficult.
“This is why water companies are more than doubling the level of financial support for customers with £4.1 billion to be made available over the next five years.
“Water companies will invest a record £20 billion in 2025-26 to support economic growth, build more homes, secure our water supplies and end sewage entering our rivers and seas.”
Examples of what the 2025-26 investment by water companies will deliver include:
- Anglian Water will continue its strategic pipeline alliance, one of the biggest environmental projects in Europe. Once complete, hundreds of kilometres of interconnecting pipelines will stretch from North Lincolnshire to Essex, helping move water from ‘wetter’ to ‘drier’ areas of the region.
- South East Water will continue a £61 million upgrade of its Bewl Water Treatment Works in East Sussex, which will see it increasing pumping by 17 million litres of water per day – a 65 per cent increase. The project is expected to finish in 2028.
- Wessex Water will upgrade many of its sewage treatment works including a £100 million expansion of its Avonmouth site which serves Bristol, £34 million at Saltford which serves Bath, and £30 million at Holdenhurst which serves Bournemouth. These projects are alongside the £8 million a month investment into tackling storm overflows between 2025-30.
- Thames Water will continue its £37 million upgrade to 1.2 miles of Victoria pipework in Islington to reduce leaks and bursts. This project is using a slip-lining technique by pushing the new pipe through the old to minimise the area needed for the project, allowing London to keep moving while Thames ensures a reliable and world class water supply.
- South West Water will invest £800 million over the next 5 years to reduce the use of storm overflows and is already making good progress, having improved two-thirds of its highest spilling overflows from 2023.
- Northumbrian Water will continue work on a £155 million project to create a 57km new water pipeline to support supplies for around 200,000 Northumbrian Water customers in the County Durham and Teesside areas.
- United Utilities will spend more than £140 million to improve sewage treatment works in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Upgrades have been made to increase the capacity and improve the quality of treated wastewater at the town’s treatment works. New storage tanks have been built at a further three sites in the area to reduce the number of times that storm overflows operate.
- Severn Trent will invest £420 million to lay 865 miles of new water pipes by 2030, starting this year. The investment is the most significant in water pipes in the last 10 years and will reduce leaks and improve water quality while creating 440 jobs right across the region.
