Veolia Water's Managing Director, Richard Bienfait, said:
"We would like to thank our customers for reporting leaks within the community.We invested £30m during 2011 to manage leakage to this very low level.We have made this investment to save as much water as we can as we could face drought conditions later in the year.
"Despite the rainfall in December and January, the South East of England experienced an exceptionally dry Autumn, which has resulted in a below average replenishment of our underground water supplies. Our underground water supplies were already below average following the dry weather in Autumn 2010 and Winter 2010-11.
However Mr. Bienfait added that the company would need to see well above average rainfall in February and March in order to avoid imposing water restrictions this summer.
Veolia Water Central takes 60 per cent of its water supply from under-ground aquifers - natural underground reservoirs. The remaining 40% of water supplies come from surface water sources: the River Thames and the Grafham Water reservoir.
Veolia Water Central is the UK's largest water supply only company and is part of Veolia Water UK. In December 2011 French owners Veolia Environnement put its three regulated UK water companies up for sale as part of its effort to reduce net debt from €15bn to less than €12bn by the end of 2013.
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