Our leakage level for March was 603 Ml/d, which is 3% lower than April last year and 1 Ml/d ahead of the plan for this year. Company number: 02366661. We fix three different types of leak. As noted, our leakage position of 603 Ml/d for April 2020 is reliant on the accuracy of two key factors. Preliminary indications from this work suggest we had underestimated unmetered household demand, and therefore overstated our leakage figures. Special in-pipe cameras to help locate difficult leaks. Similarly, prolonged hot dry periods can shrink the earth that supports pipes, causing them to move and break. This is because our leakage figures are affected by more than just the water that leaks from our pipes. 1.0 Introduction. If you wish, you can delete our cookies at any time. We’re also constantly looking for new technology and approaches to help us in our mission. Given the current restrictions and guidance, we have to take extra precautions when doing this work to protect both our key workers and members of the public, and this takes extra time. In addition, as a result of the slightly warmer than average weather conditions, we didn’t see the level of visible leaks that we would normally expect over the month. This work enables us to review the resource requirements and ensure they are enough to detect and repair the number of leaks required. Prepare your home for winter ... Thames Water Utilities Limited Registered in England and Wales. We know more is expected, which is why we have ambitious plans to make further progress, focusing on two key areas. Leaks on metered supplies. We’ve also started a conversation thread on our community platform to create further opportunities for you to talk to us and to each other, and share ideas on reducing leakage. The difference between these two values is what we record as leakage. Firstly, the backlog of repairs to mains pipes is down to around 106 jobs which is an improvement on the 115 jobs at the end of March and the lowest level in a decade. Other material risks that we monitor are the effectiveness of our leak measurement models, our understanding of how our pipes react to rapid changes in weather, and our ability to pre-empt network deterioration. We don’t include visible leaks because they are not considered to reduce the underlying level of leakage. This allowed our repair teams to focus on the existing non-visible leaks which provide the biggest leakage reduction benefit. Using data in ways like this has helped to prevent over 0.4 Ml/d of leakage in April 2020. We have a number of activities in place to address data improvements, such as issuing a guidance booklet to our repair teams that details the process for capturing repair activity. To date, he and his wife Natasha have spent £1,700 on more than 50 bags of shopping for NHS staff and the elderly and vulnerable near their home in Gravesend and Northfleet. Note: The figures in the above tables are operational leakage data and therefore based on information from Thames Water source systems at a point in time. We’re keen to engage with you in a meaningful way and we intend to use your feedback to improve our understanding of how leakage affects you, so that we can adapt our services to better meet your needs. Updating our data in this way is important as it will help us improve our leakage reduction capability and delivery. While we await confirmation, it’s important for our teams to continue to deliver life’s essential service to our customers. This money comes solely from Thames Water’s shareholders and will be reflected in customer bills. Once we are fully able to assess the impact of the restrictions on demand we will have a more accurate view. Of the total number we fix, we know around a quarter of leaks are at our customers’ properties. The water saved from repairs appears to be lower than we’ve experienced historically. Extreme weather events – can impact leakage over and above the typical seasonal rise and fall. As leakage levels reduce to new all-time low levels it is likely that the average leak is becoming smaller. This data may be subject to a data refresh on a monthly basis and for year-end reporting. While this audit is underway, we have maintained the adjustment of 20 Ml/d to leakage that we applied in September 2019. Registered Office: Clearwater Court, Vastern Road, Reading RG1 8DB. Tonia Lewis continues to fulfil the role of Undertakings Compliance Officer. We completed 4,486 leak repairs in the month. Our correction concerning unmetered household demand, which is currently subject to independent auditing, and the impact of coronavirus on our usage estimates. Note: The actual leakage level figure reflects the provisional 20 Ml/d adjustment relating to underestimated unmetered household demand (referenced in this report). While these are private leaks, outside of our vast network, we continue to work with our customers where possible to repair them – and in some cases we can do this free of charge. Ofwat investigated our leakage performance in 2017. It looks like the browser you’re using is no longer supported or is out of date. Thames Water’s action on leakage Reducing leakage is important to our customers and we remain focussed on building on our encouraging performance over the past 12 months. 2019/20 monthly and annual average leakage levels at a glance. We’ve scaled down our efforts to find private leaks at our customers’ properties, primarily due to social distancing guidance. Our Leakage Task Force is addressing these and other questions to ensure our planning assumptions and leakage reduction strategy are effective. This takes into account the impacts noted above, and has scaled down activity for the first quarter of this year – most notably it includes a lower number of repairs to private leaks at our customers’ properties. We’re innovating and working smarter to help target the areas that allow us to find the largest leakage benefits. We measure leakage in millions of litres per day (Ml/d). For example, they highlight properties with a continuous flow of water, which is an indication of a possible leak. A large part of this reduction is caused by industries that have either suspended or scaled down their operations. We’ve also installed 27,000 acoustic loggers to date, which has helped us detect almost 3 Ml/d of leakage in April 2020. Please get in touch to share your feedback, or to discuss how we may be able to make this report more accessible for you. For all water companies, leakage is made up of any water that they are unable to account for as having been used by someone. This was 8 Ml/d below our plan as a result of repair numbers for non-visible and customer leaks being below target levels for April, largely due to access restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Our leakage level at the end of April is slightly favourable to our plan, although the impact of coronavirus means we are behind our planned levels of activity. In the past we made these updates on an annual basis, but we’ve now changed the process to a six-monthly cycle and we’ll look to increase this frequency even further. The purpose of our monthly leakage report is to keep our customers and stakeholders informed of our leakage … Our results up to and including 2018/19 have been externally audited and confirmed. Current indications are positive, with the official figures due to be confirmed and formally reported to Ofwat in June. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. First, innovation and improving the productivity of our leak repair work. Second, improving our data to help us work smarter. Cold weather . Natural wear and tear on our network – if we were to carry out no work, other than repairs of visible leaks reported to us by our customers, we estimate that leakage would increase by 322 Ml/d over the year due to the wear and tear buried pipes experience from ground movement and pipe corrosion, as well as the repeated stresses to which they are subjected. This is 16% below our overall plan for the month. The impact of the current restrictions has meant our leakage activity performance is behind our original plan and likely to remain behind plan for at least the rest of the first quarter of this year. To improve our efficiency and accuracy in doing this, we’re developing two digital data-driven tools. Once we have confirmation from our auditors on our final leakage position for 2019/20, we will be able to calculate our three-year rolling average target. Our latest performance is in the context of the 27% reduction in leakage we’ve delivered between 2003/04 and 2018/19. leakage figures are affected by more than just the water that leaks from our pipes, Learn about the impact of the weather on the water network, 2019/20 monthly and annual average leakage levels at a glance here. Victoria brings highly relevant experience of reporting and communicating complex matters to the public. Thames Water Utilities Limited Registered in England and Wales. You can see our 2019/20 monthly and annual average leakage levels at a glance here. The ongoing coronavirus outbreak and resulting restrictions have had a significant impact on our leakage reduction activities and performance this month. If you think you have a leak on your shared supply, please call us on 0800 714 614 and we’ll be able to help you. As explained in this report in previous months, the leakage reduction values above include an adjustment for the estimated volume of water saved from our non-visible and customer leak repairs. The output from these tools is a clear and simple visual display of leakage information, including an up-to-date map of our network, colour-coded to show the highest-risk pipes and pipe repair history.