The catchment

Almost all of your water starts as rain on the Aldermere ridge. It gathers in three reservoirs — Cawden, Thornbeck and Larchmere — and is treated at four works before it travels through 9,300 kilometres of main to your tap.

On the way back, 7,100 kilometres of sewer carry wastewater to eleven treatment works, and we return it to the River Aldermere cleaner than the law requires. We employ 2,180 people, most of them living in the catchment they serve.

Rivers, and being honest about them

Storm overflows exist so that sewage backs up into rivers rather than into homes during heavy rain. They spilled 3,140 times across our network last year. That is too many, and we are not going to describe it as anything else.

We are spending £340 million to 2030 on the twenty worst overflows, on separating rainwater from foul sewers in Kingsmarsh and Brantwick, and on 60 hectares of wetland at Fenwold Marsh that treats water using reed beds rather than concrete.

Every overflow has a monitor, and the data goes on our map within an hour. We publish it whether or not it flatters us.

How we are doing

Last year water was available 99.97% of the time, we cut leakage by 6.4% to 143 million litres a day, and 99.96% of the 168,000 samples we took met the drinking water standards set in law.

We answered 81% of complaints within five working days, which is not good enough, and we have put another 40 people on the phones. We publish these figures every quarter, including the ones we would rather not.