Your water, your say

As part of our PR24 Price Review, water and wastewater companies in England and Wales developed their plans for 2025 to 2030. The plans covered everything each company does now and what it will do in the future.

Each company held two ‘Your water, your say’ meetings in spring and autumn 2023 to allow customers and stakeholders to question them and challenge their plans. Questions covered the service the company provides, its impact on the environment, what will happen to your water bill as well as other questions raised by customers and stakeholders.

We held our own ‘Your water, your say’ meetings on 23 and 24 July 2024 to discuss our draft decisions on the 2024 price review, which we published on 11 July 2024.

Click on the links below to find out more.

 

Ofwat’s ‘Your water, your say’ meetings – 23 and 24 July 2024

We held two virtual public meetings on 23 and 24 July 2024 to get customers and other stakeholders’ views on our draft decisions on the business plans of all water companies in England and Wales for 2025 to 2030.

Below you can find out more about:

 

Background

At home, most water services in England and Wales are provided by one of 16 water companies, and their wastewater services are provided by one of 11 of those water companies. So, most people receive their water services from a licensed monopoly. Only some business customers can choose their supplier.

Ofwat protects water customers’ interests using a range of tools. Every five years, we decide the level of services all customers can expect to get. This will include how much it will cost to keep your services running efficiently including how much money should go to protecting the environment and meeting future water needs.

We call this a ‘price review’. It affects the services you can expect to get and the bills you pay. Find out more about the 2024 price review 

As part of our 2024 price review, each water company in England and Wales developed a business plan for 2025 to 2030. These plans were submitted to Ofwat in October 2023. The plans set out how much water companies intend to spend providing their services over the five-year period, and the amount of revenue that they feel they should be permitted to earn as a result from customers from water and wastewater bills.

We reviewed and challenged each water company on its plans to ensure current and future customers have access to safe water and wastewater services, get value for money and the environment is protected and improved. We published our draft decisions on 11 July 2024 and our final determinations on 19 December 2024.

 

What is ‘Your water, your say’?

We wanted to hear the views of customers and other stakeholders on our draft decisions. Water companies held ‘Your water, your say’ meetings last year to hear directly from customers. We have published information about the meetings held by water companies below.

We held our own events – one for customers and other stakeholders of water companies in England, and one for customers and stakeholders of water companies in Wales.

  • For English water companies: Tuesday 23 July 2024, 2-4pm.
  • For Welsh water companies: Wednesday 24 July 2024, 2-4pm.

These meetings gave customers and other stakeholders the chance to hear directly from us about our draft decisions on water companies’ plans and to ask us questions.

Each meeting had an independent chair to make sure they run smoothly and that there is time to get through as many key questions as possible in the available time.

 

What happened at the meetings:

Almost 700 people attended our two virtual public ‘Your water, your say’ meetings. Read our press release about the meetings

Each meeting had an independent chair who facilitated the meeting and invited questions for people that attended

Each meeting featured the following Ofwat speakers:

  • Iain Coucher, Chair
  • David Black, Chief Executive
  • Chris Walters, Senior Director 2024 Price Review
  • Helen Campbell, Senior Director Sector Performance

We presented our draft decision for 2025-30 for 15 minutes – before inviting questions from people that attended

At each meeting customers and other stakeholders could ask us live questions or send them in advance to CCW (the representative body for water customers in England and Wales). Our panel of speakers did not see the questions before they were asked.

To help make the meetings accessible we offered:

  • Close captions;
  • A British Sign Language interpreter
  • Welsh language translation (for 24 July event only)

We have published the presentations from each meeting:

We have published a summary of the discussion at each meeting:

Ofwat ‘Your water, your say’ – Summary – 23 July 2024

Ofwat ‘Your water, your say’ – Summary – 24 July 2024

We will be considering the questions raised at the Ofwat ‘Your water, your say’ meetings as we develop our PR24 final determinations.

Below we have published the verbatim questions raised before and during the meetings.  The questions are arranged around four key themes from the meetings:

 

Water company ‘Your water your say’ meetings 2023

You will find information below about the meetings held by water companies about its PR24 business plans.

Each ‘Your water, your say’ session was hosted by an Independent Chair and allowed customers and other stakeholders to pose questions to their water company about issues that are important to them, including priorities for the future, in a public environment.

Information from the first phase of meetings can be found at the following links:

  • Affinity Water – 6 June (notes)
  • Anglian Water – 30 March (notes)
  • Bournemouth Water – 24 May (notes)
  • Bristol Water – 24 May (notes)
  • Cambridge Water – 14 June (notes)
  • Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water – 6 April (notes)
  • Hafren Dyfrdwy – 23 May (notes)
  • Northumbrian Water – 12 May (notes)
  • Portsmouth Water – 10 May (notes)
  • SES Water – 25 April (notes)
  • Severn Trent Water – 17 April (notes)
  • South East Water – 6 June (notes)
  • South Staffs Water – 14 June (notes)
  • South West Water – 24 May (notes)
  • Southern Water – 9 June (notes)
  • Thames Water – 19 May (notes)
  • United Utilities – 29 June (notes)
  • Wessex Water – 28 April (notes)
  • Yorkshire Water – 7 June (notes)

The second phase of meetings were held in October and November 2023, . Below you will find the links to each water company’s meeting presentation and meeting notes: