Guernsey Water reports a loss of £768,000 for 2019

The utility company said it was primarily due to a one-off write down of a number of assets and stock items that were being held for repurposing after Longue Hougue water treatment works was decommissioned. These assets had a value of £530,000.

Guernsey Water’s operating surplus for the year was £4.6m., a reduction of 22% from 2018, primarily due to a slight reduction in the demand for water, a freeze in the overall bill for customers and an increase in operational maintenance costs.

A revenue adjustment of £204,000 was also required, said Guernsey Water, as a result of £1.3m. of grants being repaid to the States of Guernsey in the year.

But despite these pressures Guernsey Water said it was able to keep operating and management expenses to 1% below budget.

Some £4.1m. was invested in improving and maintaining services, which included two large-scale infrastructure projects that had started in previous years.

Juas Water Treatment Works was recommissioned and a new sewer in La Hure Mare was constructed, which was phase three of the work to help alleviate flooding and pollution from sewer overflows in St Sampson’s.

‘A priority for Guernsey Water is to ensure a firm financial foundation for the long-term sustainability of our business.

‘This includes the affordability of our services, so we were pleased to be able to freeze our charges for customers in 2019,’ said Steve Langlois, managing director of Guernsey Water.

‘A highlight of the year was completing two significant projects which will help us to produce drinking water more efficiently, improve the service we provide our customers and protect our environment from pollution.’

He added: ‘As a result of decommissioning Longue Hougue and bringing Juas Water Treatment Works back on line, we have had to write off several operational assets at our Longue Hougue site.

‘However, we are already seeing improvements in operational performance, better water quality and a lower cost of water production at Juas. This means that over the whole life of the refurbishment at Juas we will still make significant savings.’

Drinking water quality compliance remained high at 99.85%, a slight decrease from 99.91% in 2018, and despite lower than normal water resource levels after the summer – there were no water use restrictions during the year.

The 2019 annual report also details the strategic planning undertaken by the utility company to help keep the island’s water services sufficient and resilient in future.

The company has announced that water and wastewater charges will rise in January.

Charges for metered water will rise by 2.02%, from £0.99 per cubic metre to £1.01 per cubic metre and unmetered increases by 3.57%, from 0.28 to 0.29 per TRP Unit.

Charges for wastewater will change by 2.14%, from £1.87 per cubic metre to £1.91 per cubic metre for metered customers, with wastewater standing charges changing from £24.17 per quarter to £24.77 per quarter.