Scottish Water’s Chief Executive Alex Plant is warning that sustained increased investment is vital if the company is to tackle the impact climate change is having on the services it provides to customers.

Writing in Scottish Water’s newly published interim report and accounts for the six months to 30 September 2023, Alex Plant said extreme weather was the new ‘norm’ and had played a major part in how the business performed for the first six months of this financial year.

The water company chief, who joined Scottish Water in June 2023 replacing Douglas Millican, also highlighted that population growth, high inflation, and increased public expectations of environmental quality are high on the list of issues the publicly-owned organisation is facing.

He said:

“The combined pressures of climate change and our ageing assets, which were not designed to cope with today’s more frequent extreme weather events, mean we are facing some very strong headwinds.”

The hot, dry period of weather in May and June saw average reservoir levels drop to just 72% capacity – 14% below the average for that time of year – so that at one point 29 reservoirs were close to running short of supply.

This was followed by multiple periods of very heavy rainfall and named storms, which caused sewer flooding and left some treatment works inaccessible.

Alex Plant commented;

“While we are yet to set customer charges for 2024/25, we know the level of cost pressures compared to available funding is going to be challenging for the rest of this year and beyond.

“Put simply, if we fall short of the funding we need, we will not be able to maintain the vital services we deliver, and we will see an increase in the number of our assets which fail. Investing even at the current increased level means we are not replacing assets at the rate we need to given

the age of our assets and the increased pressure on them from a harsher climate.

“In the first half of this year we have spent £142 million on repairs to ageing assets – this is £41 million more than at the same time last year. And we forecast that by the end of this year our total annual repair bill could be up to 27% higher than last year. This underlines the importance of doing more to plan ahead to upgrade and replace the essential assets on which our customers depend.!

Despite the challenges, the report notes that customer satisfaction in Scottish Water remains stable, and the organisation is on track to deliver its significant capital investment programme for the year – its biggest to date.

In the six months to September, £400 million of planned investment was delivered - £70 million more than at the same time last year. The funding has enabled the opening of new treatment works, supported Scotland’s housing growth and safeguarded future water quality. It has also led to innovative green technology at many sites to offset energy usage.

Scottish Water’s Chair, Dame Susan Rice, is standing down after eight years at the end of this month and in the report she praised the utility’s dedicated workforce.

Deirdre Michie, who has been a member of the utility’s board for six years, has been appointed as her successor and will take on the role of Chair from 1 January 2024.

With over 60,000 miles of pipes, 229 water treatment works and 1,838 wastewater treatment works, the water company is one of the country’s largest critical infrastructure investors and is set to invest £4.4 billion between 2021 to 2027. It employs more than 4,200 people and works with dozens of Scottish suppliers and contractors. Every day, Scottish Water delivers 1.51 billion litres of fresh drinking water and removes over 1 billion litres of waste water.

Click here to download the interim report