You may or may not be aware of the water market opening up to competition in April. There hasn’t exactly been a huge amount of press covering this.

From April 2017, all non-domestic water customers will be able to choose their water supplier, with the wholesale and retail parts of the supply chain being seperated.

The wholesaler will remain responsible for the actual supply of fresh water and wastewater services, but the retailer will be responsible for the tariff, billing, meter reading and customer services.

What savings can be made by switching supplier?

Unfortunately in cases we’ve seen so far, the savings aren’t huge. The average is between just 1-2% in savings, so bearing in mind this would be a leap into the (somewhat) unknown, switching supplies for just a 1% saving might not be in the interest of many businesses.

What other advantages are there?

Of course if you have more than one property, possibly in different supply areas, grouping these together could create efficiencies with billing and customer service. Let’s say you have 30 depots across the country, rather than have water bills from various companies at different times of the year, you may wish to have these all with one supplier.

Water retailers may also be able to offer other services such as on site audits and water reporting, which you might not receive from your current supplier. So by helping you use less, you’ll save more money.

What can I do to prepare?

Simply gather your bills from the last year (which might only be two bills if you are invoiced every 6 months) and send these to your account manager at Cost Advice. We’ll liaise with our water partners to see:

a) what savings can be made by switching to them, and

b) what other services they might be able to offer to you, helping you use less water.

Call your Cost Advice account manager directly, or contact the office on 0800 040 70 90 to discuss further.