YORKSHIRE Water has announced today that it will not accept the final determination published by Ofwat on 16 December 2019 as part of its 2019 price review.
Instead the company has asked Ofwat to refer its final determination to the Competition and Markets Authority for review.
A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water stated: ‘Significant work has been undertaken to establish the deliverability of the final determination and the levels of risk to which it will expose the company.
‘The company has concluded that the long term risks to its resilience and customers would be at a level which it cannot accept.
‘The overall approach to the determination, including as it does poorly designed penalty measures over the next five years means that the company would be forced to focus on short term performance at the expense of longer term capital investment, vital for securing resilience of critical water and waste water infrastructure in Yorkshire.’
United Utilities, Welsh Water and Severn Trent have already accepted the water sector regulator’s determinations while Southern Water has stated it’s still considering its stance.
Yorkshire Water chief executive officer Liz Barber commented the decision: “Everyone at Yorkshire Water shares a common purpose to provide safe and reliable services to our customers and our county, long into the future.
“We’re naturally committed to being the most efficient company we can, but have decided that accepting this determination would jeopardise Yorkshire’s resilience and our own.”
