Private water supplies

It is our responsibility to monitor drinking water supplied to premises in the district and to ensure it is of good quality.

Our Environmental Protection team routinely monitor the quality of private water supplies to premises in the district.

The regulations under which private water supplies (PWS) are inspected are The Private Water Supplies Regulations 2009 (the Regulations). These regulations came into effect at midnight on the January 1 2010 and feature several differences to the previous regulations.

We are now required to complete a risk assessment of all Private Water Suppliers. This has to be done within five years of the regulations coming into force, except for supplies to single non-commercial dwellings. Risk assessments involve looking at the whole private water supply including the source, any storage tanks, any treatment systems and the premises using the supply.

There are changes to the sampling that we must carry out. Large supplies (greater than 10m³/day) and supplies that provide water for commercial activities require check and audit sampling to be carried out. Check sampling involves looking at a suite of basic parameters and audit sampling covers a much larger suite of parameters. The frequency of these different sampling suites depends upon the volume of water used annually from the supply.

There are also new procedures that local authorities must follow if a private water supplier is determined unwholesome under the regulations. This includes a requirement to investigate the cause of any failures, and inform users of the supply if it poses a potential danger to human health, giving advice to users to minimise any such potential dangers. Enforcement powers are available if needed.

The Local Authority is entitled to make a charge to cover it's costs for activities relating to private water supplies. The following table sets out the current charges that will be made.

Activity	Charge	Comments
Risk Assessment	£51 + £25.50 per hour spent on site	Water samples taken as part of the risk assessment will be charged at the additional analysis cost.
Sampling	£61 + analysis costs (see below)	Charge for a visit to take a sample.
Investigation	£25.50 per hour spent on investigation + analysis costs (see below)	Charge for visiting, taking a sample and any administration whilst investigating a failure.
Authorisation	£25.50 per hour spent on authorisation	Application by the owner of a supply for permission to breach a standard temporarily whilst remedial work is carried out.
Analysis:
Regulation 10 (Small domestic supplies)	£25.00	5 parameters
Check monitoring (Basic)	£47.65	10 parameters
Check monitoring (Surface water affected supplies)	£65.94	14 parameters
Audit monitoring	£2.48 - £500 maximum	These additional parameters are sampled on large/commercial/public supplies to ensure the water is complying with all safety standards. They will only be sampled for if the supply is at risk of failing them or there is no historic data available.

Mains Water Supplies

The water companies supplying drinking water to premises our district provide us with information about the quality of water supplied on an annual basis. Enquiries about the quality of mains water should be referred to the relevant water company in the first instance:

Wessex Water tel: 08457 300 600
South West Water tel: 0800 169 1144.

If customers remain unhappy about the service from the water company further advice can be obtained from OFWAT (Office of the Water Services Regulator). We can investigate quality problems in some circumstances.

Lead Water Supplies

Water which is left standing in lead pipes for more than a couple of hours can pick up lead from the pipes. Our advice is that you run off a washing-up bowl of water before using it for drinking or cooking if the water has been standing for some time. The water companies will replace any lead pipes connecting your house to the mains beyond the property boundary; the length between the property boundary and the tap is your responsibility.