The amount of time people in England and Wales suffered disruption to their water supply has risen by a fifth since 2016-17, raising concern over the industry’s ability to cope with extreme weather.
Water leakage also fell only marginally, according to the report from the Consumer Council for Water, an industry watchdog, with three water companies — Thames Water, Affinity Water and Hafren Dyfrdwy — failing to meet targets.
About 3.16bn litres of treated water was lost every day through leaky pipework in 2018-19, a fall of 0.2 per cent but enough to fill 1,268 Olympic swimming pools.
At the same time water consumption increased for the past four years with the average person using 143 litres a day in 2018-19, up from 141 litres in the previous 12 months.
Karen Gibbs, senior policy manager at the Consumer Council for Water, warned that water efficiency “will become increasingly important as population growth and climate intensify the pressure on our water resources”.
Poor performance by the industry would also “deter people from saving water themselves”, she added.
“It’s clear that some companies still need to do much more when it comes to reducing supply interruptions and curbing leakage, which can damage people’s perceptions of the industry.”
The leakage figures will raise doubts over whether some companies will be able to achieve the more demanding targets being set by regulator Ofwat as part of the current price-setting process for 2020 to 2025.
It will also bolster critics of England’s privatised water industry, including the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn, which has pledged to renationalise the regional monopolies, most of which are owned by sovereign wealth funds and private equity type companies.
Consumers were left without water for an average of 13 minutes and 14 seconds in 2018-19, the data showed.
Although this marks a fall on the previous year, when the results were skewed by the “Beast from East” storm, when a cold snap burst pipes in February 2018, leaving tens of thousands without water for several days, the losses were still almost 22 per cent higher than two years ago, the council said.
Bristol Water was the industry’s best performer on leakage, losing an average of 71 litres per property per day — compared with Thames Water, which reported the highest levels of leakage at 177 litres per property per day.
On the upside, the number of properties flooded with sewage has fallen by a quarter during the past five years, with the trend continuing in 2018-19 when incidents fell from 3,560 to 3,252.
Trade association Water UK said the sector had invested £160bn during the past 30 years, reduced leakage by a third since the mid-1990s and that customers were now five times less likely to suffer from supply interruptions.
“But while the overall picture on leakage has improved substantially, we are determined to do even better, which is why we are planning the most ambitious leakage reduction programme for 20 years,” it said.
