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Water Service: Standards

Answer

The Chief Executive of Water Service (Mrs. Katharine Bryan) has been asked to write to the hon. Lady in response to this question.Letter from Katharine Bryan, dated 28 March 2007:"You recently asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland a Parliamentary Question about what targets are in place to cut the amount of water lost through leakage in Northern Ireland (128136). I have been asked to reply as this issue falls within my responsibility as Chief Executive of Water Service.""Leakage reduction in a network of approximately 26,500 kilometres of water mains and around 6 million joins in the network is a complex issue that requires significant planning and, to this end, Water Service has in place an active Leakage Reduction Action Plan containing phased annual reduction targets. The targets from 2002/03 are set out in the table below:"

Megalitres per day
	Target	Achieved
2002-03	291	291
2003-04	233	231
2004-05	205	203
2005-06	179	178
2006-07	169	On target
2007-08	157	¹—
2008-09	146	¹—
2009-10	136	¹—
¹ Subject to board approval.

"Since March 2003, Water Service has reduced leakage from 291 Megalitres per day (Ml/d) to 178 Megalitres per day in March 2006 and is on target to achieve 169 Ml/d by 31 March this year. We are currently undertaking a review of the ““economic level of leakage””, however, it is expected that the existing level of 165 Ml/d will be achieved by March 2008. The economic level of leakage is defined as the point at which it would cost more to make further reductions than to produce the water from another source.""The targets from 2007/08 are provisional and subject to ratification by the Board of Northern Ireland Water."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

458 c1762-3W; 128136

Session

2006-07

Subjects

Northern Ireland Standards Water Service

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk