Our investment 2010 - 2015

From 2010 to 2015 we will be spending a record £3.6 billion on upgrading the North West's water and wastewater systems. This investment will bring major improvements for customers and ensure the region meets the latest environmental targets and drinking water legislation.

Despite the record spend - £400 million more than the last five years - by 2015 the average customer's bill will have fallen by £9 compared to today's prices.*

Every five years the UK's water companies have to submit their future plans for approval by the water regulator, Ofwat. Before preparing the plan, we researched the views of 2,000 domestic customers, and 500 business customers to identify areas of concern and help ensure a service which meets expectations.

*The average customer's annual bill will fall by £9 (to £364) between 2010 and 2015, calculated before inflation.

See how we will be spending this investment.

Planning for the future

Every five years, all the water companies in England and Wales submit a business plan to Ofwat, the water regulator, outlining the investment we want to made to our network of pipes, sewers, water and wastewater treatment works and reservoirs.
We submitted a draft version of our plan in August 2008 so that our regulator, customers and others with an interest could have their say on our proposals.
Our final plan took the views of these groups into account.  We estimated that we would need to invest £3.7 billion from 2010-2015 to fund our proposed improvements.

The timeline shows the process we followed to submit our plan:

Our plan included:
. Building new and modernising our existing water pipes to ensure a reliable supply for generations to come;
. Reducing the number of overflows from sewers and upgrading wastewater treatment works to deal with growing population and climate change;
. Minimising our impact on the environment; and
. Supporting the economy and jobs around the region.

For more information:

• A summary of the plan (PDF)
• A more detailed version of the plan  (PDF)
• Printer friendly version of the detailed plan (PDF)

There were a number of key organisations involved in the price review process:

Ofwat	http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/
Consumer Council for Water	http://www.ccwater.org.uk/
DWI	http://www.dwi.gov.uk/
Environment Agency	http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/