Our plans 2020-25

Water is essential to every aspect of our lives. We drink it, cook with it and use it to clean. It grows the food we need, helps generate the energy we use, and goes into the creation of everything we own. 

But our water supply faces big challenges. The population of the South East is growing fast, and climate change will bring droughts and more extreme weather. It’s a future of more people needing water and wastewater services, with less water to go around.

The vital nature of water, and the need to keep it flowing far into the future is what we mean by Water for Life. And it’s why we need to start acting now for the challenges ahead.

We’re committed to improving the South East’s precious water environment and we take our environmental duties very seriously. We’ve come a long way since our transformation programme started in 2017 – and we’re going further each day. View our our investment areas map. On this map you’ll find an overview of our investment plans for 2020–25, which show our course of action for the years ahead. 

Our proposed business plan, which has now been submitted to our regulator Ofwat, frames a journey to a better business. It is endorsed by our Board, customers and stakeholders and has been through a rigorous assurance process both internally and through independent external assurers.

Twenty-five years from now we will have lost a third of our water sources through climate change, seen a reduction in the amount of water we are allowed to take from rivers and underground sources, and our population will have grown by 15%. Without action, we predict a supply and demand deficit by 2030 equivalent to around 50% of our current supply. Our Plan proposes 43 performance commitments for the five-year period from 2020 to 2025, directly aligned to 10 key outcomes to create a resilient water future.