Welsh Water, the only not-for-profit utility company in England and Wales, has hosted another series of developer forum events aimed at its developer services customers, where it announced its performance relating to its unique and comprehensive Developer Service Customer Commitment, which sees it make automatic goodwill payments to customers where it fails to deliver services on time. In the last financial year (2022/23) it undertook almost 23,000 transactions with only 0.002% (58) of these failing to achieve the required timescale. In total we paid £5,560 in goodwill payments to customers.
The term developer services covers enabling new connections to Welsh Water’s water and wastewater networks so that new homes and businesses are provided with essential and safe supply of clean water and wastewater services well into the future.
In their twelfth year, the developer forums are a key element of Welsh Water’s programme of engagement with housing and property developers. Over 60 property developers and social housing providers attended Welsh Water’s developer customer forums in Wrexham and Cardiff which involved updates on key customer priority topics.
The forums explored topics such as how Welsh Water has made key improvements within its new water connections process, a discussion around the potential internal metering of new homes, how Welsh Water is working with key stakeholders on the phosphates issue and a look back on a decade since mandatory sewer adoption.
Feedback on the forum was positive, with 97.3% of attendees rating it as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
If you’re interested in attending future developer forums, please email developer.services@dwrcymru.com to be added to the mailing list.
The forums come after Welsh Water announces that it contributes £1bn to the Welsh economy each year. The research, conducted recently by Cardiff University’s Welsh Economy Research Unit concludes that Welsh Water also supports more than 9,100 jobs across Wales.
Ian Wyatt, Director of Business Customer Services at Welsh Water said: “We’re proud of our longstanding strong track record when it comes to supporting and engaging with our developer customers. It was great to host our twice-yearly developer forums, which provide us with a great opportunity to outline what we are doing to support you and how we continue to facilitate new development.
“We play a pivotal role ensuring that new homes and businesses receive essential water and wastewater infrastructure and services and we recognise the important role we play with the wider economy. This is an ideal opportunity to gain insight into how we can best work together to achieve these outcomes, whilst we manage our other community and environmental responsibilities. We'd like to thank all who attended and contributed to make the forums an ongoing success, which have been ongoing over the last 12 years."