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Related documents
- Surface water drainage charges: the current position
- Surface water drainage charges - help is available
- Why do I have to pay surface water drainge?
- How does it affect community organisations?
- Common misconceptions
- What is the latest situation with surface water drainage charging and United Utilities?
- Surface water drainage charges: Information for non-household customers
Why is using site area the best system of charging for surface water drainage?
Calculating the precise costs of dealing with surface water is not simple at an individual customer level. In the past companies based their charges on the rateable value of the premises. Rateable values are not a good indication of how much surface water may drain from a property.
In 2003, following a review of the various options, we recommended that charging in relation to site area is the fairest approach. The larger your site area, the more surface water is likely to drain from it. Therefore charging by site area better reflects the actual costs imposed on the system by customers.
Customers broadly pay for the service they receive, whereas in the previous system some customers subsidised others. There was an unfair situation where a small city centre newsagent could in effect end up paying in part for services used by a large out-of-town factory.
As well as being the fairest approach, we believe charging by site area is also the most environmentally responsible approach.
Site area based charging offers financial incentives for all organisations to reduce their SWD, for example by installing soakaways, by replacing an asphalt car park with a gravel one, or concrete with grass. This will reduce the likelihood of flooding from overloaded sewers.
You only pay SWD charges for the site area where water drains into public sewers. You should not be charged for areas where there is natural drainage, such as playing fields.
