- Drinking Water 2024 – Summary of the Chief Inspector’s report for drinking water in England
- Foreword
- Water supplies and testing
- Compliance with water quality standards
- Water quality events
- Asset health and service reservoir integrity
- Consumer contacts
- Water safety planning and risk assessment
- Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
- Audit programme completed by the Inspectorate
- Enforcement, transformation and recommendations
- Lead in water
- Materials in contact with drinking water (Regulation 31)
- Security and Emergencies (SEMD)
- Network Information systems (NIS)
- Research publications
- Raw water data
- Whistleblowers
- Working with stakeholders
- Annex A – Number of tests carried out by companies
- Annex B – Compliance with standards
- Annex C – Compliance failures and events
Water supplies and testing
Set out in this report are the key facts about the quality of the public water supplies in England, which is served by 25 water companies delivering supplies to nearly 59 million consumers.
Key facts
| Public supply key fact | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Number of water companies | 25 |
| Population supplied | 58,819,999 |
| Water supplied (L/day) | 13,925,522,000 |
| Treatment works | 998 |
| Service reservoirs | 3,632 |
| Water supply zones | 1,917 |
| Length of mains pipe (km) | 321,866 |
| Surface sources | 1,144 |
| Groundwater sources | 1,009 |
| Mixed water sources | 347 |
Key facts for private water supplies
| Private supply key fact | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Population supplied | 849,800 |
| Water supplied (M3/day) | 745,167 |
| Number of supplies | 34,859 |
| Number of local authorities with private supplies | 207 |
| Sources without a risk assessment | 22,611 |
Inset appointments
| Company | Zones | Volume supplied (l/day) | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALB | 3 | 698,000 | 3,000 |
| ALE | 1 | 33,000 | 180 |
| ESP | 22 | 482,000 | 3,855 |
| ICW | 66 | 3,982,000 | 24,886 |
| IWN | 166 | 27,625,000 | 221,000 |
| LNW | 63 | 12,085,000 | 93,500 |
| MTX | 1 | 74,000 | 435 |
| MUA | 3 | 0 | 5 |
| VWP | 1 | 5,900,000 | 17,604 |
| Total | 331 | 51,724,000 | 366,467 |
IWN is the first inset appointment company to exceed a total population of two hundred thousand, these companies have traditionally been small and only import water from other incumbents for onward distribution, however reaching this milestone means that IWN is now comparable in size to a more mainstream incumbent company.
The number of samples taken by each water company is within Annex A.