Ofwat has asked the water companies in England and Wales to set out their preparations for and response to the mid-December 2022 freeze thaw event – and expressed concerns that “some companies may have failed to support their customers in the manner we would expect.”
In a letter to the water companies in England and Wales John Russell Senior Director, Strategy, Finance and Infrastructure, has asked them to provide:
- Details of the impact of the freeze thaw in their company area, including: underlying causes of any impacts; numbers of properties and customers experiencing problems;
- length of time to resolve outages; etc
- A “full and candid explanation” of the company's response to any impacts, including: communication with customers; mutual aid with other companies; distributions of bottled water; and identification of vulnerable customers and the support provided for them.
- Arrangements for compensation to impacted customers.Lessons learned and changes they intend to implement.
- Whether lessons learned from the 2018 freeze-thaw and recommendations from Ofwat's Out In The Cold review have been implemented.
The letter acknowledges that freeze-thaw events can pose a significant risk to the integrity of companies' water supply assets.
However, John Russell points out that at the same time, “these events occur with a certain degree of regularity and predictability.” and that all companies should have robust plans in place to mitigate the risks they pose.
Ofwat wants to understand how well companies' assets performed during the freeze-thaw event and whether an appropriate level of resilience was demonstrated, he explains, commenting:
“We also have concerns that some companies may have failed to support their customers in the manner we would expect.”
The regulator also expects that the findings of any independent reviews commissioned by the companies will be shared with Ofwat.
John Russell concludes:
“Understanding these points will allow us to assess the sector's current state of resilience for these types of events. Where we believe that companies – individually or collectively – have let customers down, we will consider what further action should be taken.”
The companies have been given a deadline of Tuesday 28 February to respond to the letter.
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