Registration of private water supplies
Introduction
Regulation 14 (16 in Wales) of The Private Water Supplies Regulations requires a local authority to make and keep records of every private supply in its area. This then forms a register from which it can discharge its duties in the interest of safeguarding public health. Clearly though, protection of consumers in this way can only be afforded when a private supply is known to the local authority. Many supplies will not be known to the local authority, however. In some cases, they are intentionally not registered by owners and users for ill-judged reasons, but in other instances, the importance and significance of not doing so, is simply not recognised, even though registration is encouraged on local authority websites. Indeed, it is not unlawful not to register a private water supply with the local authority. However, this can result in a potential risk to consumers going unnoticed until it manifests in some way as an actual risk, which can be detrimental to health. Those notably at risk include those who have poor immunity to infection. These people will be unaware and unsuspecting of this risk unless the supply is known to the local authority.
Sample results
In 2024 the Inspectorate was contacted by a tenant of a property whose supply of water came from a borehole located on land owned by a Trust. The supply also served a neighbouring premises used by the Trust’s workers making it a regulation 10 supply. The tenant contacted the Inspectorate to understand the significance of 300 coliforms per 100 mL from a sample of their supply, in the presence of pseudomonas bacteria and elevated concentrations of colony counts. This sample, which was taken by a private water management company employed by the landowner was from 2023, a year prior to any risk assessment of the supply or the installation of UV treatment. They reported that between 2015, when they had moved into the house and up to the time that the UV had been installed in 2024, they had suffered skin rashes and been hospitalised with a serious gastrointestinal condition. Although making no accusation, they nevertheless wanted to establish the likelihood of their debilitating experience being caused by their water supply. It was noted that they had not previously been aware of the local authorities’ responsibilities as regulators or thought to register the supply with the local authority, having placed all faith in the property owner and its management company to ensure that their supply complied with regulatory requirements. Such was their trust in them on this basis, that they did not, at the time, think to have the water quality checked independently.
The Inspectorate informed them that coliforms were an indicator parameter, for which the regulatory standard is zero in 100 mL. Whilst coliform bacteria are generally not themselves pathogenic, their presence is indicative of water that at times might be unwholesome or even unsafe. As such, the cause should be investigated. Indeed, it is a regulatory requirement for an investigation to be conducted by the local authority when coliforms are detected in any regulatory sample taken by them. The outcome would then inform the necessary next steps and ultimately mitigation of any risk. The Inspectorate also advised that the need for ‘precautionary restriction of use’ of the supply should also be considered whilst the matter is investigated. This should take account of the sample results in totality, as well as other relevant and lacking information.
Consequence of no investigation
The Inspectorate learned that unfortunately, no investigation was carried out in 2023 following the coliform and pseudomonas detections, alongside the elevated colony counts. This is because the sample was taken by the Trust’s water service provider, who was allegedly content that the regulatory standards had been met, on the basis that coliforms were indicators and did not themselves pose a risk. The local authority was apparently not aware of the supply at this time and were not informed of the result (to do so is not an obligation). Indeed, the local authority did not apparently become aware of the supply until May 2024 when the tenant contacted them after speaking with the Inspectorate to better understand the legislation.
The Inspectorate was informed that until then, no regulatory testing or risk assessment of the supply had ever been completed by the local authority. What testing had been carried out had been done in an operational capacity by private means, which appears to have been infrequent and sporadic. The results of these were seemingly never communicated to the tenant, although presumably the Trust/landowner had been informed of them.
Although the tenant had been in residence since 2015, it was allegedly not until May 2024 that a UV unit was fitted to the supply. Until that time, the only treatment in place had been a rudimentary filter that the tenant stated was rarely inspected or maintained. Once informed of the supply, the local authority carried out a risk assessment in June 2024, by which time the UV was in place and no further coliforms were detected in samples subsequently. The tenant informed the Inspectorate that they were not however given visibility of the risk assessment or told the outcome. Although the tenant sought these details from the local authority under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this request was, it seems, turned down on the basis that they were not the property owner.
The tenant accepted that their illness may not have been caused by the water supply but considered it very coincidental that until a UV had been installed, they had been regularly ill. Afterwards they had made a rapid recovery and has never been ill since.
Learning
This case study shows the importance of registering a private water supply with the local authority. Unfortunately, however, it is not necessarily widely known that the local authority has a duty to make and keep records of private water supplies. Neither is it always realised that the local authority is the regulator of private water supplies. This lack of awareness, as this case study shows, can have unforeseen consequences.
It is common and good practice to have “in house” operational testing carried out privately by supply owners, even in the absence of any local authority testing. However, on shared supplies this testing should be regarded as part of wider ongoing management and quality verification of the supply. The effectiveness of these arrangements should however be assessed by the local authority as part of their regulatory risk assessment, and they must also carry out testing in accordance with the regulatory schedules to accredited standards.
The Inspectorate has found (as in this case) that very often too much emphasis is placed on a single test result by third parties to determine whether a supply is suitably compliant with the Regulations or not. In other words, that the supply has either “passed” or “failed” based on a single result, in the absence of any risk assessment or sample result trends. In this case, the health significance of coliform detections in a sample became the subject of dispute between the tenant consumer and the local authority, with regard suitability of the water to consume. This somewhat missed the point that the root cause of these detections needed to be investigated to establish whether (or not) there was any underlying potential danger to human health associated with the supply infrastructure. Indeed, no such investigation appears to have been carried out in 2023, and it was not until a year later, once the local authority was aware of the supply that such a risk was indeed found to be present. At this point a UV was installed by the Trust a month prior to the local authority visit to conduct the risk assessment.
The issues described in this case study arose ultimately because the supply remained unknown to the local authority for many years. In the meantime, although the supply was being tested privately, it was infrequent and the presence of coliforms as indicator parameters in the water, was taken as being compliant and safe to consume. On this basis no further action to investigate or remediate the cause was taken. Whilst there is no absolute evidence that the supply had made the consumer ill, it is nevertheless reasonable to assume that in the absence of UV treatment or an informed understanding of any hazards that the supply might present, the supply was a potential danger to human health. This is particularly so given the results of the few samples that had been taken.