Speaking exclusively to Utility Week, CCWater chairman Alan Lovell said that if customers were set to lose out due to unresolve problems by the scheduled April 2017 go-live date, he would try to push it back until all the issues had been worked out.
“It would surprise me if it came to this, but one can envisage the circumstance when we felt there was potential disadvantage to other customers and we would defer it.
“That certainly is not the plan and I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we may have to. It would be disappointing and I hope we don’t.”
He added that “there should be time to put any issues right” as the sector has the best part of two years until the non-domestic market opens to retail competition.
This view was echoed by CCWater chief executive Tony Smith, who in a board meeting attended by Utility Week, said: “The timetable associated with that is tight and there are a lot of issues to be resolved.
“We have to keep a very close eye on it to judge whether it is going to actually work for customers and whether it should go live.”
CCWater still expects the market to remain on course to open in April 2017, but only if “all of the players involved work to make sure it happens on time”.
The programme to open the water market has seen two significant changes over the last year, and following the most recent change in February, it is now being run by new market opening director Adam Cooper.
The first major change to the programme happened in August last year, when Ofwat announced that it was winding down Open Water Markets Limited, the body initially charged with market opening, after the Treasury refused to allow it to be classified as a private body.
The second major overhaul occurred after plans to appoint the Water Industry Commission for Scotland to oversee the programme were voted down by the Scottish regulator’s board.