Managing our region's precious water
We have increased the amount of water the region can store – doubling it since the last drought of 1976. In the last 15 years, we have invested in three new reservoirs, Park Lake in 2007, Stannon Lake in 2008, and Hawksmoor in March 2022. These water sources combined provide an additional 4,523 million litres of raw water storage for drinking water.
We’ve also made big improvements in our ability to move water across the region. This has helped to make sure that places needing water have it. As well as this, we've reduced the amount of water we use at our own sites.
To ensure we meet our levels of service for customers in the future, we’re currently working in partnership with Bristol Water and Wessex Water to explore opportunities of shared water resources, and we’re investigating new long-term strategic schemes to our supplies to ensure they are resilient to future droughts. Read our Water Resources Management Plan to find out how we plan to deliver water to our customers long into the future despite the challenges we face in the next 25 years. Our Plan covers both South West Water and Bournemouth Water following the merger in April 2016.
We find and fix 2,000 leaks a month
We’re using the latest tech to help us find and fix leaks as quick as possible. We monitor our network with drones, satellites and listening devices. Drones are helping us cover huge areas quicker. Satellites show signs of potential leaks across the region. And our leakage technicians are kitted out with advanced listening devices to make tracking down the exact point of a leak easier.
We've got 140 leak detectors - planners, engineers, analysts - tackling leaks across the South West every day. They’re listening to our pipes and pinpointing the exact spot of a leak. No matter what time or weather, if one of our pipes near you bursts then we’ll be there fixing it.
If you spot a leak, we might not know about so please report it.
Helping you, our customers, save water
Over 80% of our customers have a water meter and on average save between £300 and £400 per year when they make the switch. Having a water meter helps reduce water use and costs through the increased awareness of how much is being used. In most cases we can fit a meter free of charge. Find out more about switching to a meter here.
Since 2011, we've been offering free water-saving goodies to all our customers. Find out more here. Buffaloo bags save water with every flush, shower and tap inserts aerate and reduce the amount of water used, and more.
Our new education programme gets us out into school and teaching the future generation about the importance of water conservation. As well as this we've also increased our presence in the community with our awesome water team who are on the ground talking to thousands of people across the region.
The Water-Saving Community Fund
Saving tap water makes sense. But we can’t do it alone, we need everyone to play their part to help save tap water and avoid waste. To help out communities get involved in saving water we’ve funded 22 projects – big and small – which have an estimated yearly saving of c.59 million litres! Find out more Water-Saving Community Fund.
