Written evidence submitted by Helen Clay-Chapman (RWS0046)

Written evidence to the Reforming Water Sector Inquiry

I listened with interest to the meeting on 6th January 2026 and wished to express my support for Marcus and his colleagues at DWI to achieve parity with the other regulators. Also to advocate for him in his quest to raise awareness and extend DWI’s powers in the areas he listed as warranting further attention.

As an experienced, now retired practitioner of 50 years standing, I joined the Water Industry immediately post transition to the Water Authority model in 1974. There was a great deal to do, even in those early days, to comply with the regulatory requirements. In the 1980's I was actively involved in the preparations for privatisation highlighting all the non-compliant water quality issues in my area of responsibility and which required funding by the new privatisation model. I was then responsible for ensuring the funding was wisely invested for those sites for which I was the manager. Following the first three quinquennium’s of investments and alongside my Water Industry colleagues, the quality of the drinking water was successively improved by implementing new and improved treatments and control measures to address years of ineffective funding from the LA regime. Alongside the investment in infrastructure, the capability of the workforce was enhanced to ensure a significant step change was embedded on how we operated the water supply system.

With the implementation of the World Health Drinking Water Safety Plan approach water quality has moved from a fixed point monitoring system to a risk based proactive mitigation regime.

These improvements were all enabled by the role of the DWI who held and continue to hold us all to account.

It is therefore with concern, that I see the deterioration in water quality and sufficiency issues for some Water Companies and try to make sense of the direction of travel from the 'Cunliffe’ report and the recommendations regarding drinking water. Having listened to the meeting and the queries raised by your committee, I feel hopeful that there is an independent voice to determine and address the gaps inherent in the Cunliffe Review. I would wholeheartedly support the DWI in reassessing the 21 point list referred to by the Chief Inspector.

From my perspective, I am specifically interested in the plight of the Private Water Supply Regulations and would advocate for DWI to have powers to regulate the Private Water Supply Regulations without haste. In particular, I am profoundly concerned about the application of the Private Water Supply Regulations by our Local Authority and have first-hand experience covering over 30 years of trying to ensure the residents in our valley receive a safe and sufficient water supply. It’s has not been easy, even with the extensive regulatory, operational and practical knowledge and experience my husband and I are able to draw upon. In the following sentences, I hope to summarise the situation we find ourselves and hence our deep concerns about the future:

•                   We have lived in a property supplied by a spring source alongside 30 other properties since 1996. Having risk assessed the situation and upon the first loss of supply event in 1998 where everyone was blaming each other, we installed a borehole for our property.
•                   Since this time, there have been over 10 significant water quality and sufficiency events for the spring source. Both my husband and I have done our best to respond to these events and restore normal water supplies.
•                   We have attempted to engage with all residents to implement the necessary improvements as per the Regulations and Guidance but it's been a thankless task with varying degrees of support and levels of success.
•                   Attempts to engage with our local Authority have had limited success and we have not experienced the level of intervention that other more competent local authorities provide. It is effectively a lottery as to whether the LA responds to us or not.
•                   With future changes proposed to the local authority regime in Devon, I hope that the level of regulation for the Private Water Supplies may improve but I fear they will be overlooked by other local and County Council priorities.
•                   I have made my concerns known to all my local and county councillors and to my MP, in the hope that this will not be the case.
•                   My MP has been really helpful and is pursuing a list of questions to the Local Authority and the Minister although the answers received portray a mismatch between theory and practice at Governmental level and a woeful picture locally.
•                   Throughout all of my engagement with the Local Authority, the Private Water Supply team at DWI specifically Phil Smart, have been extremely helpful but they have no powers to address the LA deficiencies and are not resourced to do so and thus the stalemate continues.
•                   Despite knowing all the issues with the shared spring source, we felt that by having our own borehole, we would have resilience. However, our neighbours had a catastrophic heating oil leak in December 2023 which contaminated the ground water and our borehole supply. We have had over two long years of assessment and destruction of our buildings and garden. We are now at the point where reinstatement of our borehole and the subsequent structures and garden which were demolished to gain access to the contaminated soil may occur sometime this year. Fortunately, we have been able to draw on our experience as there has been little to no assistance from the local authority despite requesting their involvement as per the DWI’s guidance.
•                   We are fortunate that our expertise has been recognised by the environmental team appointed by our insurer and we are working together to ensure that everything is restored to the pre-existing conditions.
•                   Many of our friends and relatives express that they would not have known what to do if faced with the same situation and feel strongly that the lessons we have learnt should be identified and implemented to address potential and actual risks that are routinely occurring for property owners on a private supply particularly where heating oil storage is concerned.
•                   During 2023, I was asked to assist WRC on the DEFRA funded project to review the Private Water Supply Regulations entitled 'Impact and future of the regulatory model and legislative framework surrounding private water supplies in England and Wales (DWI 70/2/352)'.  I was able to bring my first-hand knowledge of living on a spring and borehole supply and also working and providing training to the local authorities when the new Private Water Supply Regulations were introduced in 2009 to the assessment of the current situation and to contribute to the observations and recommendations in this report. I was also able to draw on the comparisons with the DWI regulated approach for the Water Company’s compared to the Local Authority’s approach to Private Water Supplies. Amongst many recommendations dictated by the scope of the project brief, it was concluded that the current Private Water Supply regulations were not fit for purpose and recommended that DWI be given powers to oversee the 330 Local Authorities application and level of compliance with the Regulations to drive the necessary improvements as has been the case for the privatised Water Industry.
•                   At the Westminster Hall meeting on 5th September 2023 (https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/50cc47b2-c855-4664-903c-b68491da569c) generic assurances were made by Rebecca Pow for Private Water Supplies. Whilst the agenda item was regarding the cost of mains water connections for rural communities, she mentions the attached WRC report (at circa 16:22) and how the recommendations will be used. To my knowledge, none of the recommendations in the attached report have been progressed.

I have shared the above in the hope that my concerns will receive attention and add weight to the DWI's mission to address all the areas not effectively addressed in the Cunliffe report. Ideally, I would like to see a way forward whereby those of us on Private Supplies may be able to rely on the fair and equal application of the current regulations. Where deficiencies are highlighted, these are addressed to provide real and tangible benefits of safe and sufficient water for today and the future for the 1 million residents in England and Wales who rely on a Private Water Supply. 

March 2026