30/05/08
Ofwat has issued the last building block of the extensive review of water competition it started at the end of 2006.
It is a wide-ranging consultation document looking at the water and sewerage industries – beyond the single vertically-integrated supply chains for water and sewerage and beyond the current Water Supply Licensing regime.
Ofwat considers the potentially contestable markets which make up these supply chains alongside the core monopoly transportation activities which it will continue to need to regulate and, predictably, advocates separation of the latter from the former.
While this is not new, Ofwat’s approach has the benefit now of being placed in the context of Defra’s strategy document ‘Future Water’, and its consultation focuses more than in the past on the innovative benefits of efficient competition.
Water UK supports the principle that competition is a means to an end and will respond positively. Another welcome departure is that Ofwat’s consultation runs over slightly more than three months, albeit over the summer period!
Contact: Jeanne Golay
