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Water Supply Licensing
WSL 3/04 15 October 2004 Dear Colleague WATER ACT 2003: WATER SUPPLY LICENSING CONSULTATION ON ACCESS CODE GUIDANCE As you know opportunities for competition in the water industry in England and Wales are soon to be extended. From autumn 2005, non-household customers who are likely to use at least 50 megalitres of water a year at a set of premises will have the option of switching from their existing water undertaker to an alternative water supply licensee. This change results from the Water Act 2003 ("Water Act"). New water supply licensees will be able to compete by purchasing water from an existing water undertaker and retailing it to a customer (a 'retail' supply), or by introducing water into a water undertaker's water supply system and retailing water to a customer (a 'combined' supply). In order for the regime to run successfully, water undertakers and water supply licensees will need to agree the price and non-price terms of retail and combined supplies. These terms will be set out in water companies' access codes, which are required, under the new Water Act, to comply with our access code guidance. The attached consultation paper is our draft access code guidance. We invite your views on our proposals outlined in it. In particular, we would like to know if our proposals are practical, are likely to cause problems, if so what these problems are and how they might be addressed. We have also identified specific questions in each section of the paper. We welcome your views on these. We invite your comments by the end of Friday 14 January 2005. Please send your views to Sukvinder Khangure, Office of Water Services, Centre City Tower, 7 Hill Street, Birmingham, B5 4UA or by email to sukvinder.khangure@ofwat.gsi.gov.uk. Unless otherwise requested, all responses will be placed in the Ofwat library and made available to the public. This is one of four consultations that we are issuing this autumn, which together consider all of the important parts of the new regime. The consultations are part of a process to ensure that the regime works effectively when it starts in autumn 2005. To support the implementation process, we are holding a workshop for stakeholders on 5 November 2004. Our letter of 10 September 2004 (WSL 2/04) sets out the details of the workshop. All responses to our consultation will be reviewed and final guidance will be issued in spring 2005. Yours sincerely, Tony Smith Director of Competition and Consumer Affairs  |
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