We serve a variety of consumers every day. This includes:

• households and organisations that use the water we supply;
• developers that build the new homes we need to connect to our pipe network; and
• non-household retailers that provide retail services to business customers (such as taking meter readers, sending bills and handling queries).

Why involve consumers in decision makingSince 2017, we have engaged with tens of thousands of consumers about what is important to them and used this feedback to directly shape the decisions in our plans.

However, over the past year, consumers have increasingly told us that we need to do more to explain how our decisions impact on them, their communities and the wider environment. This is partly in response to the bill increases that came in from April 2025, which in turn will enable us to deliver our ambitious five-year investment plan to 2030.

More consumers have also lost trust in us, and other water companies, as a provider of an essential public service. We recognise that we need to be more open and transparent and informing them about what is working and what needs improving. 

What we are doing to address this issueWe want you (as a consumer) to be confident that you, or someone you trust to represent you, are involved in the decisions that matter most. In a detailed report, we have outlined how we plan to deliver on this expectation. We also set out how we are compliant with our regulator Ofwat’s new Consumer Involvement Rule (CIR).

We summarise the main aims of the CIR below. In summary, this is to ensure:

• consumers' views on material issues are sought, effectively represented and considered in companies’ decisions, including at a Board level; and
• a more effective feedback loop is in place for decisions that have a material impact on consumers. 
  

How we are going to improveThese are some of the main actions we are taking during 2026/27 to build on our current approach to involving consumers in decision making:

• To ensure stronger representation of the consumer voice at board meetings, we have appointed a Board Consumer Champion. Sara Vaughan has taken on this role as a Non-Executive Board Member to represent your voice and strengthen engagement with other Board members.
• In addition, the Independent Challenge Group (ICG) Chair will meet the Board Consumer Champion quarterly to discuss our approach to involving consumers in decision making. The ICG Chair will also attend a Board meeting at least once a year to discuss the effectiveness of our approach with the Board. 
• We will expand our consumer engagement programme to ensure preferences are appropriately gained for all important decisions. We regularly engage with more than 20,000 consumers each year across the region, and this will help us reach more people. Read more about some of our recent consumer research.
  
• As part of this programme, we will continue to engage with the Water Voice consumer panel, which launched in November 2025.  This includes collaborating with the consumer watchdog CCW on how we deliver on the actions agreed with consumers on the panel.
• We have worked with colleagues and external experts to develop a robust and proportionate approach to help our teams identify which decisions we take are material, and the level of consumer involvement that is appropriate to inform the decision. This will help ensure consumer voices are not overlooked. We will test this framework through to March 2027 to assess how effectively it is working.

What consumers say they want from us

The latest consumer research tells us that our consumers want to:

• be more involved in the important decisions we take – particularly those that impact on the water bills they pay;
• have greater visibility over where their money is spent and how priorities are set, now and in the future;
• be involved in engagement that is meaningful, with clear explanations of the available options, costs and timescales;
• know how consumers and/or independent experts have been involved in the decisions, what the outcome of the decision are and what has changed as a result;
• understand who is responsible for delivering each decision and what happens if it does not lead to positive outcomes; and
• know what has changed for them.

What’s next?Using this insight, we plan to communicate to our different groups of consumers the following evidence. We also plan to engage on-going to help develop our approach to ensure it is clear for consumers:

• for each important decision we take, creating a 'You said, we did' resource to communicate how consumers and/or expert stakeholders were involved in the decision and what the outcome was;
• publishing the action plans agreed with our Water Voice consumer panel. An accountability session is held every 6-months which colleagues from Executive team attend. This document details the action plan our team is currently working on delivering following the first session held in March 2026; 
• publishing a report by 31 March 2026 that outlines how we will improve our approach to involving consumers in decision making for the year ahead; and
• publishing a report in 2027 that looks back about how well we well we have involved consumers in decision making over the previous year.