Severn Trent Water
Severn Trent Water provides high quality water and sewerage services to over 3.7 million households and businesses in the Midlands and mid-Wales.
Key strengths
- Our bills for customers are now the lowest on average in the UK industry.
- We continuously work to improve our performance and deliver cost and operational efficiencies against 20 Key Performance Indicators, each of which is aligned with our long term strategy.
- The drinking water and waste water quality we provide is amongst the best in the industry.
- We are committed to the long term responsible stewardship of the business, the environment, customers and the communities in which we live and work.
- We are led by a focused management team with a clear business plan and strategic direction statement.
Our industry
The water industry in England and Wales invests more than £3 billion a year and employs over 27,000 people. There are 10 regional water and sewerage companies in England and Wales. We are seeking ways to address the long term challenges the industry faces, including the possible introduction of water trading and other measures to improve the national distribution of water (see ‘Our industry’).
Our prices
Every five years, Ofwat, our economic regulator, sets annual price limits for each water company which determine how much income we collect from our customers. These five year cycles are referred to as Asset Management Plan (AMP) periods. We have just reached the end of the period 2005–10 (AMP4) and are about to enter our next five year regulatory period (AMP5). The price limits for 2010–15 were set in November 2009 (see ‘Focusing on the next regulatory period’).
Our performance
Like all water companies we submit a detailed annual breakdown of our performance to Ofwat each June, known as the June Return. This information enables Ofwat to monitor and compare water companies’ performances.
Our performance is also regulated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate, which is responsible for ensuring that we comply with drinking water quality regulations and the Environment Agency, which controls water abstraction, river pollution and flooding.
In addition, we work closely with other agencies, such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Consumer Council for Water and Natural England as we aim to achieve the highest customer service and environmental standards, while offering our customers the lowest possible prices.
Our physical assets include:
- 46,000 km of water mains
- 134 water treatment works
- 54,000 km of sewers
- 1,021 sewage treatment works
1.8bn litres
2.7bn litres
5,686
