Retailer contract and charges

You can find out when we will make any adjustment to charges here.

UU takes its responsibilities to support the non-household market seriously and has taken innovative and active steps to promote this market by way of credit terms flexibility.

We currently offer two Alternative Eligible Credit Support options (subject to terms and conditions):

1. Unsecured credit allowance covering the first £200k of a retailer’s Credit Support Requirement where they demonstrate good payment behaviour. 

2. Unsecured credit to the value of 2% of a retailers Dun and Bradstreet Credit Score Reports “Maximum Recommended Credit Limit”. 

Existing agreements can be found here.

Please get in touch with your relationship manager if you would like to know more.

Primary and non-primary invoices will be sent via email to your specified address. Invoices will be in PDF format with supporting data provided where necessary, which will be in excel format.

Primary charges will be broken down to service component level as per the market aggregated settlement reports. Non-primary invoices will be totalled by service category and broken down by individual work items in the supporting documentation.

A copy of our wholesale settlement invoicing timetable can be found here (PDF 451 KB opens in a new window).

A polite reminder will be sent the day prior to payment due dates if any balance is still outstanding. Such dates will be included in the original correspondence and will be in line with the market business terms.

All invoicing queries should be directed to our settlements team.

To assist with the visibility of our NHH tariffs, a summary of what is available can be found in our charges scheme here. If you have any questions please email us at WholesaleSettlements@uuplc.co.uk.

Following a trial that ran from 2017 to 31 March 2020 we have we now offer a full or partial connectivity allowance for areas covered by a rainwater harvester. You can find full details here.

We calculate surface water and highway drainage charges for eligible premises based on the chargeable area or site area of that premises.

You can find out more about how we measure site area here. You will also find the site area map checking service tool here which your customers can use to view the site area charges online. 

Having become aware of concerns regarding the level of our charges for schools, compared to those of other water companies, we have considered the circumstances which give rise to schools having particularly high levels of site area charges.

A significant part of the site area charges applied to schools relates to nonporous playground surfaces. School playgrounds are an essential part of the fabric of both school infrastructure and the pupil experience. There are obvious societal benefits associated with the provision of a playground area attached to an educational establishment. Schools are also likely to find it impractical to disconnect playgrounds from the drainage system.

In view of the clear benefits of these facilities to all children in education, and to society more generally, we have made an adjustment to schools’ site area charges to reflect the provision of the playground.

We introduced a concession for schools on the basis that they fall within the scope of the following definition:

An educational establishment which:

• Is used exclusively or nearly exclusively for delivering education and tuition of students for any or all of Key Stages 1-5 or equivalent; and also
• Has a playground facility attached

The concession was introduced in our 2018/19 charges scheme and provided a 50% discount to the wholesale site area charges for surface water and highway drainage. We also decided to provide a bill credit for 2017/18 worth about 15% of the wholesale site area charge.

Payments were made to the retailer via a non-ordered payment. Any further payments for other sites will be made by the same method.

Please be aware that, in order to make the application process more simple for you and your customers, from the 2019/20 charging year we will accept having an establishment number on the EduBase database as sufficient evidence of eligibility for this concessionary scheme.

The establishment number can be found against the “LAESTAB” data field, for example “LAESTAB: 760/5528”

To ensure the prompt processing of any new claims we would ask that you quote this reference number within your H/04 form.

Our FAQ’s can be found here

If a retailer is contacted by a customer who doesn’t think they’ve had the credit, simply submit an F01 general enquiry form to wholesaleservicedesk@uuplc.co.uk and provide details of the SPID and customer and details of eligibility.

In April 2020 we introduced an incentive for Sustainable drainage systems. Full details can be found in our charges scheme and you can also find out more information about sustainable drainage systems here.

Once we’ve a contract in place you’ll be able to begin switching customers within our area.

When we receive notification that you’re starting a customer switch we’ll undertake a number of activities:

• Sensitive customers: we’ll identify any customers that are flagged as “sensitive” and contact you via email to confirm the classification. We’ll also inform you of any site specific arrangements in place for that customer.
• Work in progress: we’ll identify, and inform you via email, of any open activities for your customer. This will include any market process or other requests that are in progress at the time of the switch. 

Trade effluent charging strengths will be derived from the analytical results of samples taken from the trade premises and fixed for the charging year. We’ll notify you of the strengths prior to the start of the charging year. Where it becomes apparent that the parameters being used for charging are no longer representative of the effluent strength across the charging year, we may reassess the strengths from the date this becomes apparent. Requests for modifications to strengths within the charging year will be considered and if agreed by us, will be applied from the date of application. Where limited or no sampling data is available, we’ll determine strengths to be used for charging purposes based on the following:

1. Representative data from similar discharges; or
2. Samples taken over a different period but which can be shown to be representative.

An allowance may also be applied for any water supplied to the premises that is not returned to sewer. For any allowance, you must apply using the Retailer Meter Form and include any supporting information to enable us to determine if any such allowances are justified. You must inform us of any changes that affect an allowance. Any change to an allowance is effective from the date on which we’re informed of the change. We may review existing allowances at any time at our discretion.

For further information on trade effluent please refer to our Wholesale charges scheme.

We have a number of unpaired sewerage SPIDs in the market. These SPIDs, which primarily have surface water and highways drainage service components, are not associated with the primary water and sewerage SPID for a premises. We’ll continue to consolidate unpaired SPIDs through our own continuous improvement of data. However we’ll also initiate a process at the point of switching to ensure that unpaired SPIDs are re-associated with the other SPIDs for the given premises.