Metered Water Charges

For full information on business water charges please read our Scheme of Charges 2007/08.

Your water bill comprises of two separate charges:
- a Volumetric Charge - currently £0.8894 for each cubic metre of water registered on your meter.
- a Standing Charge (yearly) based on the nominal diameter of your supply pipe as follows:

Size of Supply Pipe Cost

Existing Customers:
Up to and including 20mm £60
Over 20mm up to and including 25mm £98
Over 25mm up to and  including 40mm £185
Over 40mm up to and  including 50mm £305
Over 50mm up to and  including 75mm £610
Over 75mm up to and  including 100mm £1100
Over 100m £1580

In the first year, 2007/2008, the domestic allowance will be reduced to 134 cubic metres a year, in 2008/2009 it will be 66 cubic metres a year and from then on completely removed. This means that you will receive a bill if you use more water than the reduced domestic allowance.

Of this group of metered customers those who use more than the reduced allowance will receive a bill for:
• a standing charge (currently around £50); and
• a volumetric charge, based on the amount of water used, of up to £60.

The average water (only) bill for this group of customers will be about £110 in 2007/2008 (rising to about £300 in 2009/2010). If you receive more than one domestic allowance your bill could go up by a lot more.

Your water bill will change very little if you are:
• De-rated
• rate-exempt
• use a large volume of water.

Trade Effluent Charges
All businesses which discharge trade effluent will have to pay charges. The charges will continue to be worked out on a standard formula (based on the volume and strength of effluent) and will be brought fully in line with practice in Great Britain.

This will result in increasing trade effluent charges over several years (about 17% higher in 2007/2008). This is against very small increases in charges over the past number of years.

About half of trade effluent customers will have to pay about £100 extra a year in 2007/2008 rising to £400 a year by 2009/2010. A smaller number of customers will have to pay more than this.