Ofwat is consulting on a proposal to grant SSE Water a variation to its appointment to enable it to provide water and sewerage services to a site called Brewery Square, in Dorchester.
The proposal would allow SSE Water to supply water and sewerage services to a development of 636 household properties. The proposal also allows for 42 commercial connections.
New appointments and variations include one company replacing another as the appointee for a specific geographic area. SSE Water will serve its customers by taking a temporary bulk supply of water from Wessex Water for not longer than two years, and then supply the site via its own on-site source of water. SSE Water will make a bulk connection to Wessex Water’s sewers.
SSE Water proposes to charge customers at Brewery Square based on the existing Wessex Water household metered tariffs for water and sewerage. SSE Water will be required to offer customers at least equivalent levels of service to Wessex Water.
SSE Water was granted its appointment as a water and sewerage company in October 2007 for a housing development called Old Sarum, near Salisbury in Wessex Water’s area. It has since been granted a further twelve variations to its appointment at a variety of sites in different company’s areas throughout England and Wales.
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Notes to Editors:
- Ofwat (The Water Services Regulation Authority) is the economic regulator of water and sewerage companies in England and Wales. It exercises its powers in a way that it judges will protect the interests of consumers, promote value and safeguard future water and sewerage services by allowing efficient companies to carry out their functions properly, and finance them.
- New appointments and variations are the route by which one company replaces another as the appointed water and/or sewerage company for a specified area. The replacement water and sewerage company will have all of the same duties and responsibilities as the previous statutory water and sewerage company for the specified area.
- There are three qualifying criteria for seeking a new appointment or variation:
- an area does not contain any premises that receive services from an appointed water or sewerage company (it is ‘unserved’);
- a customer uses (or is likely to use) at least 50 million litres of water a year (in England) or 250 million litres of water a year (in Wales) at each of its premises and wants to change its supplier (a ‘large user’); or
- the existing appointed company agrees to transfer part of its area to a different company (a transfer by ‘consent’).
- Media enquiries to the Ofwat Press Office: 0121 644 7642 / 7821 / 7616 / [email protected]