A public supply that switched to being a private water supply
Background
It is not unusual for owners and users of private water supplies to seek a connection to the public supply system to provide an alternative, or a back-up arrangement to a private water supply. This is often the case where private supplies are failing, unreliable or where it overcomes difficulties in managing and maintaining a supply, whatever the reason. This however is only an option when connection fees are not cost prohibitive and or the parties concerned agree with such a forward plan.
Much less common is where a water undertaker relinquishes its licence as a water supplier of a public supply system but continues to provide water intended for human consumption to consumers as a private supply. The circumstances and reasons for so doing are likely to be case specific and probably financial, and in theory such a switch should not result in overall detriment to public health or consumer confidence. This is partly because the regulations for both public and private water supplies were originally transposed from the same European Directive. This means that the standards of wholesomeness are the same in both sets of regulations, and among other similarities they are both also risk based. Despite this, consumers on private supplies are nevertheless generally at greater risk than those on public supplies for a variety of reasons.
Public to private supply
Since the inception of the regulations in 2010, there has been only one case where a public water supply provided by a licenced undertaker, has changed to become a private supply. This transfer took place in 2017 and concerns a supply in north-west Hampshire on the Wiltshire border, which serves over 700 residential properties and 50 or so commercial premises (approximately 2000 people). When circumstances change in this way, the regulation of the water quality on the supply remains in place, albeit under different (private water supplies) regulations. This is to ensure that consumers are afforded the same level of protection, irrespective of the regulatory body. However, an independent scientific project commissioned by the Inspectorate in 2023, (see link to project reports) concluded that, whilst this was undoubtedly the intension of the regulations, the regulation of private supplies is not equitable with public supplies. Consequently, consumers that were served by a once public supply may be subject to an increased risk on being transferred to a private supply.
Episode of insufficiency on the supply
In 2024 Defra and the Inspectorate were made aware that consumers on the above-mentioned supply had experienced a loss of water supply in May 2024. This lasted for the best part of a week with significant impact to consumers. Initially it proved impossible for those responsible to source an engineer to come to site to carry out the repairs to the failures which led to the loss of supplies, and although the supply had a secondary back-up, the pump on this supply failed. Another temporary pump was eventually sourced to keep the supply going, but it was unreliable, and it took around three weeks to configure and install a suitable replacement.
Tankers were used to provide alternative supplies, but they could not keep pace with the demand from affected consumers. Bottled water was ordered to supplement the deficit, but the quantity available was limited, and the delivery was delayed due to an extremely high demand for emergency resources elsewhere on the public network, caused by a separate event. When bottled water did arrive, those responsible for the supply did not have the resource capacity to deliver it to the affected households. Unfortunately, the supply owner had also been relying on the local water company for a stock of bottled water but was unaware that it had closed its bottling plant eighteen months earlier.
Root cause
This situation arose from several root causes, which are common to shared private water supplies. They include insufficient human resource, funding, inadequate maintenance programmes and, as this case has shown, they can result in deficient emergency contingency procedures and strategies. These issues are usually interrelated and sometimes made more complex by disagreements between the parties and stakeholders involved.
Learning
Supplies of this nature are consequentially forced to be managed largely by best endeavours in a reactive manner, contrary to modern risk-based regulation. As this case study shows, this is inadequate and creates supplies that are not sufficiently resilient, leading to supplies that are unsustainable in the long term. As a result of this, the extent to which consumers can be assured of a wholesome and sufficient supply is much less than that guaranteed to consumers on public supplies.
In situations of this kind, it is essential that local authorities use their enforcement powers to ensure that those responsible for the management and maintenance of private water supplies proactively put in place robust arrangements for emergency scenarios. This should be carried out as part of their regulation 6 risk assessment duties.