My Account
Customer Promise
We think water is wonderful. It’s the shower that wakes us up, the hot bath that relaxes us before bed. We cook with it… grow gardens with it… and we know just how important water is in our everyday lives. That’s why all our effort goes into keeping your water flowing clearly and making waste water clean again every single day.
If anything ever impacts your water supply, we will let you know what is happening and what we are doing to fix it. We’ll keep you regularly updated, and if supplies are impacted over a longer period, we’ll also make alternative water supplies available to you.
We could also help if you have additional medical needs, by adding you to the Priority Services Register. Having your details on the register helps us to plan maintenance work around things like medical treatments that require a water supply, such as dialysis. It also means we’re able to quickly locate you if you need extra help during a supply interruption.
What's the story behind your bill?
Your water bill covers more than just the cost of cleaning the water you use and the waste water we take away. Behind the scenes at Severn Trent we work hard 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year to ensure that you receive a clean, safe and reliable water supply. To do this, we manage all the pipes and treatment works on a daily basis, as well as invest in them for the future.
Our average household bill for water and sewerage in 2021/22 will be around £369 per year or just £1.01 per day. This compares with an average bill of £397 for England and Wales last year.
What makes up our average bill of £1.01 per day?
Repairing and replacing our network
There’s a lot of work involved to ensure the water services to and from your home
run smoothly. So we need to carry out maintenance on our network of reservoirs, treatment works, pumping stations and sewer pipes.
Performance Incentives
Similar to ‘performance related pay’, the way we’re regulated links the service we deliver to our customers to the charges they pay. The size of these changes are based on the results of customer research which tell us how much customers value the improvements we’ve made. Around 2p out of the daily £1.01 relates to improvements we delivered over the last five years.
Building new pipes and water facilities
We’ll make sure water is there when you need it - now and for the future. We are continuously investing in new projects that will give you a service you can rely on for many years to come.
Financing new investment
We’ll continue to invest in the future and ensure we can financially support future projects.
Energy
We need to use energy to clean water and pump it around our network. Currently we produce 24% of our own energy including converting solid material from sewage into gas.
VAT and Licences
Water has VAT added to it by the government at a rate of 5%. We also pay for licences to provide our services to you.
Running our business
Our customer service team, IT systems and our engineers are all needed to help you when it's needed. These are important elements that enable us to look after you and your home.
To provide you with a continuous supply of water, we:
- Gather and collect water from rivers and reservoirs or pump it from underground rocks
- Store the water in reservoirs ready to be treated
- Treat, clean and provide the cleaned water to our millions of customers
When you've finished with using your water, it's also our job to make sure the dirty water is safely taken away and part of your bill pays for:
- Pumping sewage to treatment works
- Treating sewage so that it is safe to return to the environment
- Sending cleaned and treated waste water back into rivers and the sea
- Answer calls and enquiries from our customers
- Manage and develop our billing system
I need help paying my bill
We know that sometimes changes in your bills can be difficult to manage. We can help you find the easiest way to pay your bill as well as tell you about a number of schemes that we run. These include WaterSure, the Big Difference Scheme and some other tariffs that may help reduce the amount you pay.
Find out more here or call us on 03456 022 777 to talk through all your options and see how we can help.
How we improved our service to you
In 2019/20 we improved across a range of areas, helping us to provide a better service to you. These improvements include:
- a 14% reduction in complaints about water quality
- Ahead of our targets on supply interruptions and leakage
- Industry-leading 4-star rating for environmental performance from the Environment Agency
We completed one of the biggest projects we’ve ever delivered, the £300m Birmingham Resilience Project, which will provide the city with an alternative water supply.
We didn’t always deliver the improvements we promised. For example:
- Although we’ve delivered big reductions in sewer flooding over the last 5 years, this year we fell short of a new, tighter, performance commitment that we had agreed with Ofwat.
- We still fell short of our target of repairing all visible leaks in 24 hours
As we didn’t deliver these commitments, amongst others, a small reduction has been made to the average household water bill.
Why else are bills changing this year?
Every year we update our charges. As well as our service, there are a number of other changes that could impact your bills. They include:
- Changes in the rate of inflation,
- Reductions in our costs as we become more efficient,
- Changes in the number of customers we serve (and how much water they use),
- Changes to make sure that we haven’t collected more revenue from customers’ bills than the limits set by our regulator.
If you’re on a meter, the amount of water you use could increase or decrease your bill. Discover our helpful water saving tips and the range of devices we can provide to help you save water and save money.