Consultation on the Wholesale Retail Code

About Consultation

At the moment only a small number of business, charity and public sector (“business”) customers across England and Wales can choose their water retailer and most business customers must use services provided by the monopoly water companies. The Water Act 2014 (WA14) will allow eligible business customers to choose their supplier of water and wastewater retail services from April 2017.

This means that for business customers who use the water supply or sewerage system of an appointed company whose area is wholly or mainly in England, the market will be extended to include all business, charity and public sector customers (‘business customers’). However, for those who use the water supply or sewerage system of an appointed company whose area is wholly or mainly in Wales, the market will not be extended, reflecting the different policy position of the Welsh Government which retains the 50ML threshold.

A new legal and regulatory framework is being put in place to facilitate the new business retail market, and provide the necessary market governance. This framework includes a number of codes which together set out the rules for the new market.

This consultation focuses on the Wholesale Retail Code (WRC). Please also note our consultation on the Market Arrangements Code.‎

We welcome your comments on the Wholesale Retail Code by Friday 16 December 2016.

Please submit email responses to [email protected], with the subject WRC Consultation or post them to:

WRC Consultation
Retail Market Opening Programme
Ofwat
21 Bloomsbury Street
London
WC1B 3HF

In this document, we are formally consulting on the restructured WRC. We are seeking feedback from respondents on whether any further changes are needed to the WRC before it comes into effect at Market Opening in April 2017.

The WRC applies to all Licensee and Appointees in England and Wales. We intend to introduce a derogations process to relieve Licensees and Appointees from compliance with obligations in the WRC, which they can demonstrate to our satisfaction are disproportionate in effect and unduly burdensome on the business. As a consequence this document should be considered together with our proposed policy on derogations.

Update 20/02/17:

Please view the outcomes tab for the proposed final version of the Wholesale Retail Code which we intend to designate formally as a code pursuant to sections 66DA and 117F Water Industry Act 1991, when the Secretary of State has commenced our power to do so. We expect this to happen at Market Opening.  In order to provide certainty to participants we are publishing this document in advance of formal designation so that participants can make the necessary preparation for Market Opening. We do not intend to make modifications to this document in advance of its designation at Market Opening unless those modifications are critical to Market Opening and could not be managed through the enduring processes.