Water firms in England and Wales lost 1tn litres via leaky pipes in 2021
Water companies in England and Wales lost more than 1tn litres via leaky pipes last year, according to the sector’s latest figures.
The industry and its financial regulator, Ofwat, say the water companies lost an average of 2,923.8m litres of water a day in 2021-22, equating to 1.06tn litres over the year, although Ofwat said the figures remained provisional until it has completed validation checks.
The figure amounts to the equivalent of 426,875 Olympic swimming pools or more than three and a half Lake Windermeres.
Thames Water leaked the largest volumes, according to the industry body Water UK, losing 217bn litres of water over the year – this week, the company announced it would introduce a hosepipe ban from 24 August, affecting 15 million customers.
Severn Trent Water followed close behind with 161bn litres leaked over the year, United Utilities with 151bn litres leaked, Yorkshire Water with 103bn litres and Northumbrian Water with 69bn litres lost.
Water UK’s data, shared with the Guardian, shows total leakage has fallen slightly over the past five years, down from 1.2tn litres a year in 2017-18, and these figures are corroborated by Ofwat.
However, the volumes leaked by each water company, according to Water UK, do not tally with those previously published by Ofwat in its annual service delivery reports. The regulator says this is because it introduced a new reporting methodology and that it has had to recalculate past leakage volumes to bring them in line with it.
Ofwat said it “updated leakage performance reporting for consistency, requiring all companies to report a three-year average” and that before the sector’s PR19 (2019-24) five-year business period, “companies were able to report performance in different terms –
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