Building and Developing
Commercial property
From 1st April, the water retail market for business customers is changing, customers have the freedom to choose who provides their retail services such as billing.
Where the property to be connected is for a non-household customer, you will need to choose a retailer before connection. If you do not choose a retailer, then one will be allocated. Show Homes, temporary building supplies and site welfare facilities are eligible to switch between retailers, and although these connections are temporary, they still need a retailer. For more information on the changes and advice on how to choose a retailer, please visit the Open Water website.
If you're creating a commercial property you are most likely going to need a new water connection to our water main and a connection to the public sewer to take the sewage away. If the property needs a large amount of water, especially water used in industrial processing, you may need a large water connection and if you are disposing of this water into the sewer you might need special permission.
Each individual commercial property should have its own connection to our mains. How much water you require will determine what size connection you need. For example - for industrial processing, hotel and leisure facilities or large scale food production a large diameter connection may be required. For premises such as small offices and warehousing a standard 25mm/ 32mm connection may be suitable.
In most built up areas there's a water main in the road or footpath nearby which we can connect your property to. In more rural areas this may be further away and require a longer service pipe to be laid.
If you need a lot of water we might need to make some changes to our network to be able to deliver this.
There are several ways of getting rid of the sewage from your property. You may choose to connect to the public sewer and let us deal with it for you. In most built up areas there are public sewers nearby which you can connect to. In more rural areas this may be further away so you may want to consider other options such as septic tanks & soakaways.
Any change to an existing connection – e.g. changing what the property is used for, or changes to flows into existing sewers - will also require our approval.
Any new connection to a public sewer will need our approval, it is illegal to connect to a sewer without our consent. Even if you are re-using an existing sewer connection we need to approve the connection and any changes to existing flows.
If you’re not ready to apply for a new connection but would like to know where our mains are and whether we would need to upgrade our network to supply your property you can request a developer enquiry.