Last year Thames Water managed to dodge a fine from Ofwat by being forced to spend an extra £150m on fixing leaks. It seems the company is doing well to meet the levels of leak fixing imposed by the water industry regulator.
In an obvious attempt to improve public relations, Thames have started a Regular leakage report section on their website which will be updated over time. John Halsall, Director of Water Operations at Thames says that in the last ten months the company is “on track” to meet its target of plugging leaks of 810 megalitres per day. He does point out though that a sudden drop in temperatures could mean burst pipes and more leakages.
Whilst all this sounds promising, there are quite a few grey areas in the report, for instance the report for the last twelve months not being as good as for the last ten months and the concern over what might happen to the figures in the next two months if we get cold weather. So on the face of it Thames are certainly spending money and improving the leaks situation, but the report does give the impression (perhaps) of statistical manipulation and we wonder how much input Thames Water’s PR department had. But let’s just hope Thames are heading in the right direction and that Ofwat back up these claims.