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Agenda item

Utilities

To receive reports and discuss water resource, managing leakages, and updates on adverse weather on water supply from Thames Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water LTD.

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee received a report set out on pages 47 to 62 of the agenda, which provided an update from SES Water and a presentation from Thames Water. The updates provided focussed on water resource, managing leaks and managing the effect of adverse weather upon water supply.

In attendance at the meeting for this item were:-

·         Alice Keeping, Local Government Liaison- Thames Water

·         Danny Leamon, Head of Metering - Thames Water

During the presentation from Thames Water, the following points were noted. A3

i.      2018 was the joint hottest summer on record and had required Thames Water to pump and additional 450 million litres of water into the network.

ii.    Although Thames Water usually tried to avoid asking customers to limit their water usage, they had to in 2018 in those areas that were particularly effected by low water levels. There was a drive to encourage customers to provide mobile numbers to enable Thames Water to communicate more effectively during dry periods.

iii.   Predicted demand for water across the area covered by Thames Water was an average of 2,500 million litres a week. This took into account the variance for seasonal demand, with projections modelled on both a short and long term basis.

iv.   The source of 70% of the water used by Thames Water customers came from rivers, with the rest supplied by underground sources and boreholes. 

v.    There had been below average rainfall for 8 of the last 13 months. Rain was needed to allow the opportunity to put water back into reservoirs, which were currently 90% full. January and February had been dry, which was not good in terms of preparation for summer and it was hoped that rainfall would be closer to average over the next  couple of months to make up for this.

vi.   Croydon was very similar to the rest of London, with 50% of its water supply coming from the River Thames and the rest from underground water sources which were located in Waddon, Russell Hill, West Wycombe and Addington. Thames Water was continuously undertaking maintenance on its infrastructure to ensure that it was reliable for summer.

vii.  Action being taken by Thames Water to manage demand included the offer of smart meters for homes which was now being extended to businesses. There was enhanced modelling in place for extreme weather events and improved support for vulnerable customers during any such events. Thames Water also worked hard to reduce leakages and ensured that there was resilience in the potentially vulnerable areas of the system.

Following the presentation the Sub-Committee was given the opportunity to question the representatives from Thames Water on their service delivery. The first question related to the role out of water meters to all residential properties, with it highlighted that correspondence had been received advising residents that it would be happening in the local area, but to date there had not been any evidence of this work taking place. In response it was highlighted that the installation of water meters was a large programme of work with over 400,000 homes covered by Thames Water. From the work undertaken to date, Thames Water had encountered a number of issues such as complications from installing meters in large rental properties.  However they had been able to learn from this process to ensure that it would be more efficient going forward.

As residents had already received notification that the move to install water meters would be happening prior to Thames Water being in a position to install meters in the borough, it was suggested that sending the letter to inform residents may have been premature.

It was noted that anecdotally there seemed to be an increasing number of leakages and as such it was questioned how much was spent by Thames Water to fix these leakages. It was advised that Thames Water published information about leakages monthly on their website. It was acknowledged that the level of leakages was higher that it should be, with the target for leakages not met in the past two years. Thames Water had invested £100m above their original budget to address these issues which had resulted in improvements. The level of leakage in Croydon was high, but not adversely dissimilar to where it was expected to be. At present Thames Water was repairing 1,500 leakages a week, compared to 900 per week a couple of years ago.

In answer to a question about the response times for fixing leaks once reported it was advised that there was aimed to fix all visible leaks within 5 days, given the time it took to liaise with the Highway team at the Council to arrange for access to the leak. If a leak effected a customer’s supply it would increase the urgency of repair. At present an average of 200 visible leaks were reported on a daily basis, all of which were visited within 24 hours.

As recent summers had been increasingly drier and hotter, it was questioned whether climate change was included as a factor when forecasting future demand. It was advised that Thames Water planned for maximum demand periods such as during the summer and worked to ensure that there was resilience within the system to meet this through reducing leakages and investing in the infrastructure. Thames Water was also talking with their customers about managing demand to reduce the pressure on the supply during peak periods.

In response to a question about ground water levels, it was advised that the amount of water that could be taken from these sources was regulated by the Environment Agency, with only a certain amount of extraction allowed. Thames Water worked closely with the Environment Agency to plan ahead and mitigate against the times when there was a need to reduce the amount of water that could be extracted through the introduction of new pipe work to transport water or identifying new ground water sources. A concern was raised by the Sub-Committee about the water level of the River Wandle as a result of water extraction.

It was noted that in certain parts of the borough, which were at higher level topographically, residents had raised concern about their water pressure and as such it was questioned how water pressure was monitored.  It was advised that pressure management was a key part to managing leakages and as such it was managed continuously for any issues. Thames Water would install boosters to increase the water pressure in tall buildings if required, but it was likely that residents living in areas of higher topography would experience more issues with pressure.

The Chair thanked both representatives from Thames Water for their attendance at the meeting and the information provided to the Sub-Committee.

Information Requests

The Sub-Committee requested the following information from the representatives of Thames Water:-

1.    Request the full programme for meter roll out in Croydon over the next five year programme.

2.    Request information on any additional infrastructure investment planned for Croydon.

3.    Request information on whether there has been any issues in Croydon that may affect water pressure, particularly in the vicinity of Auckland Road and how residents can report issues.

Conclusions

Following the discussion of this item, the Sub-Committee reached the following conclusions:

1.  The Sub-Committee agreed to send it’s thanks to the representatives from Thames Water for attending the meeting and answering their questions.

2.  The Sub-Committee felt that it would have been beneficial to have additional data in the report and agreed that there was a need to be clear on the specific information required when inviting an external organisation to attend a meeting.

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