The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has blasted water companies for failing to deliver the infrastructure required to meet the increased housebuilding that has taken place across the UK in the last 10 years.
The trade body told Utility Week that water companies must be “far more dynamic” in their planning for new housing supply as they enjoy the assets “gifted” to them by developers.
An HBF spokesman said: “House builders have paid water companies millions of pounds in recent years and it is their duty to ensure infrastructure needs are in place to meet the required demand.
“Furthermore, the investment in new housing provides the water and sewerage sector with a significant opportunity to secure additional income (in perpetuity) from new water and sewerage assets that are gifted to water and sewerage companies by house builders and free of charge.”
The spokesman added: “The need to predict, plan and provide has never been more important – the water and sewerage sector needs to be far more dynamic in this regard.”
Ofwat is consulting on a new measure of the service water companies provide to developers, to be called D-Mex, as part of its PR19 methodology.