United Utilities to spend £80m on supplies after UK summer heatwave
United Utilities expects to spend another £80m this year on safeguarding its supply line, after narrowly avoiding the need for a hosepipe ban during the UK’s summer heatwave.
"Earlier this year, the UK experienced a prolonged period of extreme hot and dry weather resulting in exceptional demand from customers," it said in a trading update today.
However, it expects to bring in higher group revenue in the six months to the end of September than for the same period last year as it treats the operating costs caused by Britain’s stretch of dry weather as an “adjusted item”.
The company said customer satisfaction has continued to improve as it performs well against regulator Ofwat’s Service Incentive Mechanism measure, adding that it is the top performing water company according to the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s drinking water quality metric.
But debt will increase as the utility firm continues “to invest in its asset base” and its underlying net finance expense will be around £30m lower than for the first half of last year due to lower RPI inflation.
It will release its half-year results on 21 November.