[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Environment Agency

Periodic Review 2009 - PR09

Summary

In November 2009 the Water Services Regulation Authority - Ofwat - will set the price limits that water companies can charge their customers for the supply of water and the treatment of waste water for the following five years. This Periodic Review 2009 or ‘PR09’ also determines how much investment water companies can spend on maintaining their services as well as improving them.

This is the fifth price review for the water industry since it was privatised in 1989 and billions of pounds have been spent across the country reversing many years of underinvestment.

Take the Mersey estuary; two decades ago it was not much more than an open sewer. Sewage from Liverpool was flushed directly into the river and the fish had all but died out. Following a massive investment programme by the water company United Utilities, with direction from the Environment Agency, this situation has now been turned around.

Today the Mersey is home to all sorts of fish including salmon which have returned after an absence of nearly a century. It’s not just the environment that has benefited; the whole area has been transformed as water quality has improved. A riverside location is now considered an asset rather than the liability it once was.

Yet the Mersey is by no means unique. There are similar stories up and down the country. A clean environment and good water supply are vital to our health and the quality of our lives as well as having a positive influence on run-down areas in our towns and cities. The challenge for the 2009 price review is to maintain these many achievements and, where necessary, deliver further improvements for communities today and for generations to come.

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Periodic Review 2009 - PR09

Summary

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