Hose Pipe Ban

Hosepipe restrictions remain in place following the dry winter.

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Click here for our latest Drought Bulletin

Water Efficiency Advice

Mid Kent Water is working hard to stay in touch with its customers needs. 

Business bulletin is a bi-monthly update for our key-customers, keeping you informed of the latest news from Mid Kent Water and the water industry.

In OFWATs Overall Performance Assessment for 2004/05 Mid Kent Water is now 5th equal in the league table out of all 23 water companies in England & Wales

Key Data
mid kent water:

Operates over 100 boreholes across Kent .
Delivers around 170,000,000 litres of water a day.
Supplies a population of 600,000.

Did you know that mid kent water offers a range of other water related services to its customers including:

Water Audit of private networks,

Operation & Maintenance of Water and Wastewater Plant,

Water Consultancy,

Fisheries Management and Consultancy? 

Customer Water Savings

Comparing water use between 2006 and 2005, residents in the Mid Kent Water area saved 14.6 megalitres on average every day in June. Enough to supply 36,000 homes daily. A continued responsible approach by consumers to the use of water will help to avoid further drought restrictions.

On Target for Leakage

MID KENT WATER ON TARGET FOR LEAKAGE SAYS WATER REGULATOR

A report on water leakage shows that Mid Kent Water has bettered the target set for the company by the water regulator Ofwat.

The report shows that Mid Kent Water has met and improved on the target savings of 1,000,000 litres a day set by Ofwat by more than 100,000 litres per day.

The 1,100,000 litre savings is sufficient to supply 2,700 homes with water per day.

Asset Director Paul Seeley said: “We are pleased with the results but there is still a massive job to do. With 4,220 kilometres of water mains and more than 2 million joints we will always have leaks. Our aim is to repair all leaks quickly and efficiently to ensure that waste is minimised.”

The water company currently has fourteen gangs of men working day and night repairing leaks and the same number of technicians tracing them.

Mid Kent Water has put in extra resources to reduce leakage in recent years and this has resulted in savings of over 9 million litres of water a day.

Leaks are repaired in priority order but delays can occur because on some occasions notice has to be given or permission sought to excavate or close roads to carry out repairs.

Mr Seeley said: “A third of our water leakage occurs in customer’s own pipes. Customers can help by looking out for damp patches, pools of water or lush vegetation during dry periods. Other telltale signs include a sudden drop in pressure or a continuous noise on the plumbing system when no one is using the water.

Grounds Maintenance

Peter Todd the Courses Manager for London Golf club has written a review of the maintenance procedures associated with grasses and pitches and planning ahead for low water use. Whilst specifically aimed at golf course management, this is equally appropriate to any commercially maintained grassed area.

Click here to access the full text.

Leak Repair

By far and away the most emotive issue in the industry currently is leakage. Consumers have every right to expect that the water company, whilst promoting restraint from its customers, should do everything possible to reduce leakage from the system to an absolute minimum.

That’s why it’s gratifying to report that our sustained pro-active approach achieves the right result.

Below shows a non showing leak that occurred recently, effectively trebling losses in one of our District Metered Areas and starting the response process. As a result of investment in new technology the consumption profile focused attention in a particular area, allowing technicians to pin-point the leak quickly. The repair team, benefiting from detailed knowledge of the pipe size, material and location were able to fix the problem with no disruption to supplies elsewhere in the local area.

As can be seen the entire process was completed within 3 days with the consumption immediately returning to the baseline level, which in effect confirmed that there was only one burst that had caused the issue in the first place.

Using the Web for Promoting our Services

Mid Kent Water has been using the world wide web to promote its various commercial services for some years now and have been very effective in getting good positions on the various search engines, particularly Google. Over the years we have found this to be an excellent route to market, in particular for services that are out of the ordinary and required effectively on an ad-hoc basis.

A particular recent success has been water tankering! People going on line to look for water tanker, water bowser, bulk water and a range of similar terms will invariably see 'drinking water services' listed at the top with the clear title "Bulk Water Tanker Bowser". More than that, anybody using a search engine has to look a lot further to find any potential competitor making us the ideal company to call.

More than that, we are able to monitor how people find our website, what search terms they use and which pages they look at, all of this allows us to modify the content - almost in real time - so that we are ever refining our web promotion to closely match what our potential customers are looking for!

 

Competition in the Water Industry

The water supply licensing regime went live on 1 December 2005 enabling approx 2200 business customers nationally using more than 50,000m³ a year to exercise choice and change water supplier.

A number of those business customers expressed a wish to switch water supplier to gain a better deal in terms of service and/or price.

To date (July 2006) – after seven months - no customers have changed supplier despite a number having an interest in switching.

Since 1 December 2005 Ofwat has approved water supply licenses for five new entrants to the water supply market.

We understand that only one Wholesale Master Agreement (WMA) has so far been signed between a licensed water supplier and an incumbent. This results from serious issues arising out of interpretation of  OFWAT guidance.

Whilst the concept of cheaper pricing may appeal, we believe that good customer communication and services and security of supply from a supplier close to hand are ust as important to our customers.

Indicative Access Prices

Mid Kent Water Tankering

As well as supplying 250,000 customers throughout Kent through its mains network Mid Kent Water offers tankering services for a range of uses where mains quality water is not required or where a mains supply is not available or where rapid filling is required - a recent example being the filling of the Big Brother Pool shortly before the first 'guest' arrived. 

These services are used widely, mainly for commercial uses, to supply construction water, cooling water and other cleaning purposes.  We are also seeing an increasing call on this service in order to secure a standby water supply in the event of a mains closure both within our area and throughout the South East.

Water is available from both potable and non-potable water sources, the latter proving particularly useful to help customers minimise the impact of non-potable uses on the public water supply.