Draft Determination

Draft Determination - 28 August 2024

In October 2023 we published our proposed Business Plan for 2025 30. Our plan was developed through extensive engagement with our customers and stakeholders.

Ofwat published the PR24 Draft Determinations

[Draft Determinations - Ofwat] 11 July 2024. 

We are pleased Ofwat has recognised the quality and ambition in our Business Plan for 2025-30.

We asked for c.£6bn of investment in our plan.

More than 93% of which has been funded by Ofwat, but it has removed funding associated with making sure our asset base is resilient and that our services can be maintained through extreme weather events as a result of climate change.

Without this additional funding, we will be unable to deliver some of the commitments we made in our plan and services would be at greater risk from asset failure or the impacts of extreme weather events.

Our concerns centre on financeability and resilience and we have asked for changes in these areas.

Investors have choices about where they invest their money. These decisions by Ofwat mean investors will earn less by investing in UK water infrastructure than in other utilities or countries.

Ending sewage spills and the recovery of our rivers will be slower in the North East, and we will fail to deal with the water shortages we know are coming in Essex and Suffolk.

Every water company should be allowed by Ofwat to invest what is needed. We don’t want our regions to be left behind.

We hope that Ofwat will consider the evidence we have provided and make suitable changes in its Final Determination this winter.

If it does, bills would only increase by slightly more than in our original plan. We would continue to offer a large affordability package to help those customers struggling to pay their bills with four times as much support as they have currently and a hardship fund of £20m paid for by our shareholders.

Bills would not need to increase further in 2030 by more than 10% and customers would enjoy more stable and predictable increases.

We submitted our response to these proposals on 28 August 2024, as set out below.

You can also read an Executive Summary of our Response to Ofwat’s Draft Determination.