Since I became Southern Water CEO in July 2022, I’ve always been straight with our customers and stakeholders that as a company our performance has not been good enough and needs to improve.
Not only that; it needs to do so at pace -- delivering rapid, tangible change for our customers, who rightly demand it, and for the environment we enjoy in this beautiful region.
We’re privileged to serve just under five million homes across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex and Kent. Upgrading and improving our water and waste networks across this huge region is a massive undertaking, but it’s essential. Southern Water’s shareholders support this wholeheartedly, and their commitment – without taking an external dividend payment since 2017 -- is allowing us to put our money where our mouth is.
As the financial year draws to a close, I want to update our customers on the huge sums we’re spending to improve things and meet their expectations.
How much have we invested?
Since 2020, we’ve spent more than £990 million on planned construction projects to improve our water and wastewater services. A further £560 million will be invested over the coming year. So even if you set aside everyday business repairs and costs, and the game-changing efforts of our Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force, our total investment in this area will soon pass £1.5 billion.
What do those hundreds of millions buy us? It's not just a matter of fixing leaks or upgrading old infrastructure – although that’s a big part of it. These investments are also about reimagining how we manage and treat water, to safeguard supplies in this region where water scarcity is a threat, and where the population is growing fast, for generations to come.
Our customers are also bill-payers. Listening to them, I understand they want to know that we’re spending our billpayers’ and shareholders’ money in an ambitious way that fixes the issues we have and delivers positive results in their communities. This is why we have broken down our spending county by county:
- Hampshire and the Isle of Wight = £257 million over past four years, plus £195 million planned for year ahead
- Sussex = £333 million over past four years, plus £137 million planned for year ahead
- Kent = £276 million over past four years, plus £151 million planned for year ahead
What have we invested in?
Water
- We have a duty to protect the environment and our local ecosystems, and safeguard future water supply. To protect the environment and limit our impact on local wildlife, we’re now putting less water in supply than we were 30 years ago. We’ve invested more than £30 million in improving how we take water, reduce our impact and protect local wildlife and the environment.
- To improve water resilience we’ve invested over £115 million in future-proofing our major water supply works, which has included upgrading the treatment process and reducing the risk of future interruptions.
- We’ve spent £56 million increasing our water treatment capability to make sure we can meet the growing demand for water supplies, even during periods of dry weather.
- The population in the South East is rapidly rising. To allow for this regional growth, and meet the increased demand it brings, we’ve invested around £24.5 million to extend our water network to serve new housing developments.
Wastewater
- As we strive to improve our environmental performance, we’ve worked hard to use energy more efficiently, recycle materials, and cut our carbon footprint, investing £30 million in doing so.
- We’ve invested £48 million in new sewers and replacing ageing infrastructure to protect homes, businesses, and the environment from bursts and pollutions.
- To reduce our use of storm overflows, £119 million has been spent on increasing our capacity to hold and treat wastewater with nature-based approaches.
- We’ve invested £289 million in our wastewater treatment process to enhance the quality of water we release through outfall pipes.
What’s next…
There’s no doubt: the next 12 months are going to be challenging. We’ve set ourselves ambitious targets and we’re determined to deliver on these, protecting our environment and keeping the water network flowing for all our customers. By this time next year, we’ll have invested a further half a billion pounds in improved infrastructure and performance.
The water sector is often publicly criticised; but I want to celebrate and thank the thousands of hard-working Southern Water employees and partners, who are putting all their energy into improving things for customers, turning the investments that I’ve set out above into meaningful action. Each of us knows that there’s still a very long way to go, but we’re making progress on the journey to turn things round for our customers, our environment, and generations to come.