Portsmouth Water continues to maintain its position of delivering the lowest water bills in England and Wales but at the same time providing industry-leading levels of service to customers.

For 2021/22, we have increased our bills by 2.2% (effective from 1 July). This means our average household water bill will be £104 – considerably lower than any other water company with the average household water bill for England and Wales being £194.

CEO Bob Taylor stated, “Despite delivering the lowest water bills in England and Wales, we are mindful of the current economic pressures on family incomes, especially for the more vulnerable members of our society. During the pandemic, we have stepped up our communications to customers who are struggling to pay, asking them to contact us at the earliest opportunity so we can advise and help wherever we can. This support includes offering payment holidays / affordable installment plans etc.”

“In 2016, we introduced our ‘Helping Hand Tariff’, which is specifically designed to help households with an overall income lower than Government’s low-income threshold (currently £16,385). This caps the water bill at our minimum charge (from 1st July this will be £77.76). So far, more than 9,000 customers have taken advantage of this tariff.”

“We have adapted our ways of working during the Covid-19 outbreak to continue to deliver a very high-quality water service, providing a safe, secure and reliable supply of high-quality drinking water to our customers which at the same time represents excellent value for money.”

Even with the lowest charges in England and Wales, we are fully committed to further enhancing our service including:
<ul>
 	<li>Development of Havant Thicket Winter Storage Reservoir – a £130 million investment. The reservoir will create a strategic new water source for the South East and allow Southern Water to reduce abstraction from chalk streams, as well as creating a green community facility and new habitats for wildlife.</li>
 	<li>Maintaining our industry-leading performance in leakage reduction, improving our detection and repair activities by developing and adopting industry leading techniques, ensuring we will meet our long-term target of a further 15% reduction by 2024/25.</li>
 	<li>Promoting biodiversity on our landholdings and within the wider environment and the delivery of our Catchment Management Plan where we work with local farmers and landowners to prevent potential water quality problems such as nitrate pollution at source rather than through expensive water treatment solutions.</li>
 	<li>Continue to promote household water efficiency and encourage meters for those customers who will benefit financially or those who wish to learn more about their own water usage patterns to become more water efficient</li>
 	<li>Ensure customers who need special help when we experience operational challenges are listed on our Priority Services Register. We added over 30,000 customers who are over 70 years of age to our register in 2020 to ensure we prioritise help for them in an emergency.</li>
</ul>
For more information, contact Ian Limb, Head of Human Resources. Telephone 07850 775578, e-mail: <a href="mailto:i.limb@portsmouthwater.co.uk">i.limb@portsmouthwater.co.uk</a>