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Water Supply Licensing
WSL 04/05 24 June 2005 WATER SUPPLY LICENSING (WSL) GUIDANCE ON ACCESS CODES Enclosed is our guidance on access codes and the summary of responses to the consultation. This follows our consultation on 15 October 2004 (WSL 03/04) and input from the WSL Technical Advisory Group. The guidance sets out the policies that appointed water companies must follow when developing their access codes for allowing water supply licensees to have access to their supply systems. Some of the guidance is statutory and some non-statutory. The distinction is explained in section 1.2 of the guidance. We require all of the guidance to be followed. You should also follow the template for the structure of access codes in WSL 03/05, which we also issued today. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is considering an appeal against our Competition Act 1998 decision in the complaint by Albion Water Limited against Dwr Cymru Cyfyngedig relating to common carriage for the supply of water to the Shotton paper mill (Case CA98/00/48). In the appeal questions were raised on the interpretation of the costs principle in the Water Act 2003. We have been asked whether the CAT's judgement in that appeal will have any impact on our guidance on access codes. We cannot anticipate what the CAT may say. Delaying the publication of our guidance would delay the start of the new regime. In the circumstances, we consider the correct course is to issue this guidance at this time. We will consider whether we need to change our guidance after the CAT has handed down its judgement. We expect appointed water companies to complete their indicative access prices and make them publicly available by 31 August 2005 and to complete their access codes and make them publicly available by 15 September 2005. We will be asking the Reporters to review the indicative access prices to ensure they follow our guidance. Any enquiries on this letter should be referred initially to Elaine Chatham on (0121) 625 3650. Philip Fletcher  |
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