South West Water

South West Water is the licensed water and sewerage service provider for Devon, Cornwall and parts of Dorset and Somerset. The company serves a region of nearly 10,300 square kilometres with 1.65 million residents and in excess of 10 million annual visitors. On average each day it distributes over 440 Megalitres (Ml) of treated water and disposes of around 250Ml of waste water through an asset base comprising:

Water distribution mains	15,041 km
Sewers	9,221 km
Impounding reservoirs	15
Water treatment works	40
Waste water treatment works, including 54 works with ultra-violet treatment and three with membrane filtration	633
Intermittent discharges, including 1,041 combined sewer overflows	1,686

Since privatisation in 1989 the company has successfully delivered the largest capital programme per capita of any of the water and sewerage companies with an initial focus on improving coastal waste water treatment and disposal. The region currently has 144 EU designated bathing waters, almost one third of the total in England and Wales, and 132 of these have benefited over the last 18 years from the company’s marine investment programme. The emphasis has now moved to completing a 15-year programme of improving the quality of drinking water and providing better customer service.

South West Water expects to create value through delivering the regulatory contract agreed with Ofwat. The contract scope is reviewed every five years. As well as determining outputs, Ofwat sets prices to enable efficient companies to earn a reasonable rate of return on their assets.

In the current regulatory period Ofwat assumed that the equity cost of capital for all companies would be 7.7% real after tax with an overall weighted average cost of capital of 5.1% real after tax.

www.southwestwater.co.uk/