Hose Pipe Ban
Hosepipe restrictions remain
in place following the dry winter.
click
here for more details
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?
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Non Essential Use - NEU (Drought Order)
As you are aware Mid Kent Water made a
NEU or Drought Order application to DEFRA earlier in the
year. This request was sanctioned and below is a little
detail and reasoning why the company has not had to impose
further restrictions beyond the ongoing domestic hosepipe
ban.
The Drought Order submission was
made as a prudent measure in line with both the Company’s
Drought Plan and also to meet the expectations of the
regulators.
The Water Resources Act 1991, Section
73 states that if the secretary of state is satisfied: ‘that, by reason
of an exceptional shortage of rain, a serious deficiency
of supplies of water in any area exists or is threatened’ then
he/she will grant powers by order to a water company. These
criteria were met and the Company took prudent measures
so that it would have the ability to manage the drought
as/when/if it escalated.
MKW initiatives:
- Extensive PR campaign, engaging all customers
- Dedicated advice and efficiency measures
for commercial businesses
- Acceleration
of a range of investment schemes
- Additional transfer schemes
- Improvements and additional resilience to
source outputs
- 25% increase in leakage resources
- Management and reduction of network pressures
- Large user visits
MKW customers have played a massive role
in supporting the company by minimising their water usage
to such an extent that we have seen suppressed peak demands
this summer. Demands overall have been down by up to 10%
in some areas and has enabled greater flexibility to manage
greatly reduced resources.
We did not implement the NEU because the
Secretary of State provided us only with the
powers to implement as and when required/justified as a
prudent measure.
Mid Kent Water were duty bound to ensure
we took a proportionate approach if we needed to
implement the NEU. For example the impact felt by those
non essential users that would be
affected was justified alongside the threat to essential
water supplies. In reality demands
were so reduced, due to the great collective response,
we could not justify that the actual risk
to essential supplies existed.
Targeting Toilets
MID KENT WATER
has joined forces with the Holiday Inn Group to install
water saving devices in its local hotels.
Every time a guest
or a member of staff uses the toilet there will be
a saving of at least one litre of valuable
water each flush.
The water company has provided
the Holiday Inn Group with 700 savaflush bags to fit
in the cisterns of the five hotels they have in the company area.
MKW at Fire Station Open
Day
Mike Owen, Mike Cole, Christine
Clisby and Paul Seeley manned a stand at Larkfield Fire
Station’s Community Safety Day. Staff were kept
busy handing out leaflets and talking about water saving,
metering and the drought, while younger visitors were
keen to get their hands on a prized MKW -
drinking water bottle.
 Mike
Owen amused the children by demonstrating how to turn
muddy water into clear water with the aid of a sand filter
while other demonstrations included the Fire Brigade
putting out a chip pan and also a sofa fire.
There was
also a display by the Deal Cliff Climbers rescue team.
Key customer Visits
Extensive Key Customer contact has been undertaken this
year, predominately by Mike Cole, the result of which
has significantly benefited Mid Kent Water in better
understanding of business customer requirements.
The
industry has been historically poor in meeting the needs
and expectations of some of its most important customers.
Direct feedback and internal reporting improvements have
helped us to focus on critical issues as well as some
long term problems. Maintaining and continuing to improve
these relationships, whilst working closer with your
business development, will allow us to invest in an appropriate
and timely manner, improving efficiencies and minimising
costs to both parties.
Should you have any issue you wish to discuss, please
contact mike.cole@midkent.co.uk
Butterfly's re-appearance
The nationally scarce heath fritillary
butterfly has made a spectacular return this summer
to the Blean Wood complex near Canterbury - thanks
to a joint Mid Kent Water and Kent Wildlife Trust
conservation project.
The butterfly’s re-appearance
has been attributed to the extensive coppicing work
carried out by project team and supported by dedicated
volunteers throughout last winter.
The Blean Wood complex is one of
the remaining strongholds for the heath fritillary.
Its numbers have greatly declined this century, due
mainly to changes in woodland management. These include
the cessation of coppicing resulting in woodland
becoming overgrown.
The caterpillar of the butterfly
relies almost entirely for its survival on cow wheat
(Melampyrum pratense) - the main larvae
food plant in the Blean, which only grows for a few
years after coppicing work is achieved.
The Blean Wood complex of West Blean
and Thornden Woods is one of the largest concentrated
tracts of ancient semi-natural woodland in England
and was designated in 1981 as a Site of Special Scientific
Interest (SSSI) in recognition of its special biological
interest.
Mid Kent Water is keen to work closely
with and support organisations such as Kent Wildlife
Trust, recognising that it has a duty to protect
and preserve the environment in the course of its
day-to-day activity.
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