Wessex Water Services Limited, known as Wessex Water, is a water supply and sewerage utility company serving an area of South West England, covering 10,000 square kilometres including Bristol, most of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire and parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire. Wessex Water supplies 1.3 million people with around 285 million litres of water a day. The company is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991. In 2016, it had about 2,100 employees. Wessex Water is owned by the Malaysian power company YTL Corporation. Its headquarters are on the outskirts of Bath at Claverton Down, in a modern energy-efficient building by Bennetts Associates and Buro Happold.

History

The company originated as the Wessex Water Authority, one of ten regional water authorities established by the Water Act 1973. These bodies were privatised in 1989. Wessex Water Services Limited was purchased by American company Enron in 1998 for $2.4 billion and placed in a newly formed subsidiary, Azurix. Following Enron's collapse, in 2002 Wessex Water was sold to YTL Power International of Malaysia. The water authority had acquired the assets and duties of a number of public sector and local authority water utilities: Four people, three of them Wessex Water employees, were killed in an explosion at a company site in Avonmouth on 3 December 2020.

Operations

Reservoirs and lakes

The company owns and manages several reservoirs including Blashford Lakes in Hampshire, Clatworthy Reservoir, Durleigh Reservoir, Hawkridge Reservoir, Otterhead Lakes, Sutton Bingham Reservoir and Tucking Mill in Somerset, many of which, in addition to supplying drinking water, are used for recreation and as nature reserves.

GENeco

Wessex Water's GENeco subsidiary, established in 2009, operates sewage treatment works. It recycles waste, produces renewable energy and provides the agricultural industry with fertiliser. In summer 2010, GENeco launched the Bio-Bug, a modified VW Beetle that runs on bio-gas generated from waste treated at sewage treatment works. Waste flushed down the toilets of just 70 homes in Bristol is enough to power the Bio-Bug for a year, based on an annual mileage of 10,000 miles. In November 2014, the UK's first bus powered entirely by human and food waste went into service between Bristol and Bath, run by tour operator Bath Bus Company. Since 2019, biomethane powers buses on one of Bristol's MetroBus routes. The gas is produced at the company's "bioresources and renewable energy park" in Avonmouth, which is run by GENeco.

Performance

Wessex Water achieved a score of 4.53 in Ofwat's 'Satisfaction by company' survey 2012/13 (5 being ‘very satisfied’). In 2013, Wessex Water's compliance with drinking water standards exceeded 99.9% and the company maintained 100% compliance with sewage treatment discharge consents. In both 2011/12 and 2012/13, the company's leakage figure was 69 million litres per day, compared to a yearly average of 73 million litres per day between 2005 and 2010. Wessex Water's greenhouse gas emissions totalled 119 kilotonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2018/19, compared to 149 kilotonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2011/12 and 159 kilotonnes in 2012/13.

Key people

Ruth Jefferson has been chief executive of Wessex Water since October 2024. Colin Skellet was the chief executive from 1988 to 2024; he continues as group chief executive with overall responsibility for all YTL's UK activities. Skellet was appointed OBE in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to business and to the WaterAid organisation. Francis Yeoh, a long-serving director of YTL Corporation and currently the executive chairman of the conglomerate, is non-executive chairman of the board of Wessex Water.

Environmental record