In their business plans submitted to Ofwat last week, South West Water (SWW) said it planned to continue to deliver its 84megalitres (Ml) /day target and United Utilities (UU) said it would maintain leakage levels at 2014/15 target levels.
Both companies said its levels were below the Sustainable Economic Level of Leakage (SELL).
Jacob Tompkins, managing director of NGO Waterwise, said: “Most water companies have found a way to continue to reduce leakage while keeping bills down.
“Given the pressures on resources, and climate change it is surprising UU and SWW have not also been able to do that.
“Especially given that UU were effected by drought in 2010.”
In its business plan United Utilities said: “In a period when customers are feeling the strain of the current economic environment, we are not proposing to spend additional sums to target a still lower leakage level.”
SWW said reducing leakage at this time was not “cost effective or affordable”.
Chris Mills , communications manager at SWW, said: “Our customers have told us they do would like to see us out and about fixing visible leaks quicker which we are proposing to do but their number one message was that they wanted us to control bills and offer excellent value in all that we do.
“We have high meter penetration, effective demand management along with a forecasted surplus of water and falling consumption so we believe targeting more on leakage does not offer best value for money.”
However, Tompkins said that the two companies should be able to innovate to find cheaper ways of reducing leakage while keeping bills down for customers “like the other companies had”.
Anglian Water had the most ambitious reduction target of 12 per cent by 2020.
The company, which has also proposed to keep its bills below inflation from 2015-2020, said it had set itself its “toughest ever target” aiming for no more than 172Ml/d by 2020 compared to 195Ml/d today.
Thames came second with a pledge to reduce leakage by 10 per cent by 2020 from the current target of 673 Ml/d to 606 Ml/d. However, Thames also said it would increase bills by 8 per cent in the next price review.
Welsh Water plans to reduce leakage by 8 per cent by 2020.