Companies considering a decision to switch water supplier may base the decision partly on price, but many other factors will play a part, such as reliability of supply and environmental performance.
It has become increasingly apparent in recent years that water companies will come under considerable pressure from the public, media, politicians and regulator Ofwat if they fail to meet the mark, with Thames Water being the most criticised firm, as well as struggling in deep debt.
However, in one regard Thames may now celebrate something of a triumph. While it has been heavily criticised for sewage pollution incidents upstream from London, in the capital itself its grand project to massively increase the capital’s sewerage capacity and prevent overflows into the Thames is all but finished.
All Hail The Super Sewer
This month has seen the Thames Tideway Tunnel – known as the ‘super sewer’ – being fully plugged into the existing London sewage system, with all 21 connections now in place. Even before then, however, the initial connections had already enabled the system to come into use, with over five and a half million tonnes of sewage already kept out of the Thames.
A further test will await when the sewer faces storm conditions, but it appears the 25 km tunnel is doing exactly what it was designed to do, making the river cleaner as it sweeps through the capital as the extra capacity prevents overflows in wet weather, something that climate change has exacerbated.
London’s Victorian sewers were, in their time, an engineering marvel in their own right. Poor sanitation was a problem in all urban areas, but more so in the largest city and, as the 19th century saw the capital soar in population from around a million to more than four million, the vast network of tunnels transformed the situation.
A key benefit at the time was the cleaner river, consigning to history incidents like the ‘Great Stink’ of 1858. However, the sewers, while offering enough sewage capacity for six million residents, were put under pressure as the capital got larger in the 20th century.
The Need For More Capacity
This pressure eased as the post-war population declined, but the trend went into reverse from the end of the 1980s and a 21st century London of nine million has been vulnerable to being overwhelmed on rainy days.
Following ten years of construction, most of the spills are now being prevented, which is good news for London and might just do something to improve the battered reputation of Thames Water.
This may beg a wider question, however; since it is not just the Thames that has been blighted by sewage spills, could the same solution be required, albeit not on quite so large a scale, elsewhere?
Such a question may be relevant in urban areas, for the reversal of the postwar ‘flight to the suburbs’ in the capital since the 1980s has happened elsewhere, with the added impact that while central London has always been densely populated, many other cities, like Manchester, had tiny city centre populations 30 years ago.
Any visitor to Manchester today will see a vastly different situation as a plethora of residential skyscrapers rise into the sky. Other major cities, such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds, are heading the same way.
For example, in the decade to the 2021 Census, the city of Manchester’s population rose from 503,000 to 552,000, while Leeds was up from 751,000 to 812,000 and Birmingham, the UK’s largest local authority, jumped from 1,073,000 to 1,144,000.
This could mean an increased need for extra sewage capacity in these cities at some point as well, although situations differ; Birmingham, for instance, does not have a large river in its city centre, whereas port cities such as Liverpool and Newcastle, like London, have wide rivers close to their estuaries.
It’s Not All About Big Cities
Elsewhere, however, there are many spillages in rural areas and if your company is based far from any large city with a mighty river flowing through it, news of super sewers may mean little to you, unless you are planning a visit to the big smoke.
Indeed, it may be that in some areas a surge in population numbers is not the reason for issues facing water suppliers. It could be that creaky infrastructure that has not been kept up to date, or that when problems arise they are not tackled swiftly and effectively. It may take a lot less than the absence of a 25km tunnel to leave you with an underperforming supplier.
Nonetheless, when it comes to choosing whether to stay with a supplier or move on, there is no doubt that companies taking clear steps to ensure their service is up to scratch will have good reasons to attract or retain customers.
