The region we serve is home to approximately nine million people.  Across the East of England, Cambridge, Peterborough, and Milton Keynes are three of the UK’s fastest-growing cities over the last decade.  The region’s population is predicted to increase by more than 700,000 people over the next 20 years. Over the next five years alone, the Government’s Growth Mission will seek to increase housing numbers by 40% across the region we serve – an uplift of c. 75,000 new homes.  This places extra pressure on water resources, waste water treatment capacity and the wider environment, with new housing developments and connection to water supplies crucial to sustainable growth. 

Furthermore, in the East of England, agriculture’s economic contribution is roughly twice the national average, and the proportion of the local workforce working in agriculture is around 1.5 times the national average.  This demonstrates the extent to which economic activity in the region depends on water resources.  Water Resources East has calculated that 10% of the East of England’s water resources is used for farm irrigation - around four times as much as any other region in the UK - with another 5% being used for energy, industry and other purposes.


Supporting sustainable growth is central to Anglian Water’s mission and purpose of fostering a prosperous and thriving region and we are committed to supporting delivery of the Government’s ambitions for growth, whilst also delivering our obligations to protect the environment.

We will deliver significant investment to our infrastructure during AMP8, however there will be a small number of areas where we will have to manage growth more proactively to protect the environment and our existing customers in the near term. To support this, we have been making changes to how we respond to planning applications for some new developments in our region; including limiting requests for non-domestic water supplies, suggesting the most sustainable point of connection to our sewer networks, objecting to planning applications in water recycling catchments due to treatment capacity, or suggesting conditions that align with the delivery of our AMP8 growth investments.

Potable water leakage from our network, customer pipes and raw water losses 


Our vision for 2050 is to reduce leakage levels to globally leading levels.

We have invested significantly in reducing leakage over the last 20 years and we now lose approximately 32% less water through leaks than we did in 1998 despite connecting over 500,000 new properties.  We aim to deliver an 11.7% reduction by 2030 and 30% reduction by 2050 (from our 2017/18 baseline) which we believe is an ambitious target that strikes the right balance between cost and ambition.  

Our performance is already at leading levels. We want to reduce it further to protect the environment by abstracting less and reducing the energy used to treat and move water through our pipes to get to customer taps, saving carbon and reducing emissions.  To achieve even greater leakage reductions we need to look at new and faster ways to seek out those hard-to- find leaks. This year, we have used satellite technology to survey 5,000km of rural distribution and trunk mains, to identify and prioritise sections of pipe for proactive leak detection and mitigation.  This has saved over 320,000 litres of water on average per day that would have been lost to leaks.  And, through our roll out of smart meters, we are supporting customer to better understand and reduce their usage and spot leaks on their pipes too.  Our target was to install over 1 million smart meters by the end of this AMP.  In February 2025 we installed our 1 millionth meter and around half of our customers are now on smart meters. Smart meters are a fundamental part of our Water Resources Management Plan and to secure sustainable water resources in the future.  We anticipate that 100% of our customers will have a smart meter by 2030 empowering us to manage demand and reduce Per Capita Consumption to 116 litres per person a day, a 14% reduction on 2017/18 baseline.

Bathing and shellfish waters


There are 54 designated bathing sites in our region - 48 coastal sites, two estuarine sites and four inland sites, which offer a positive impact for society and the environment. 17 sites have Blue Flags and a further 25 have Seaside Awards, supporting the tourism economies of coastal towns.  This includes the Rutland Water Sykes Lane bathing water which became the first inland bathing water in England to be awarded the Blue Flag Award and Seaside Award.  Our ambition is to work with local communities to support opportunities for inland bathing waters, so that in the future, the majority of our customers will live within one hour of a designated bathing water site.

In 2024/25,  91% of our coastal bathing waters were classified as Good’ or Excellent’.  Two sites were classed as ‘Poor’ and we are working with Local Authorities and the Environment Agency to better understand where future improvements can be made.

Wellbeing benefit of recreation at our reservoirs


Our reservoirs are vital infrastructure that provide high quality drinking water to our 4.3 million customers.  They are also valued spaces, with over 1.4 million visitors each year visiting our water parks at Grafham Water, Rutland Water, Pitsford Water and Alton Water.  The parks are great places for people to explore and wildlife to thrive and have been recognised with Green Flag Awards.


Health and safety incidents

All of the hard work and progress towards our ambitions is made possible through our people and our partners. Their safety, health and happiness is at the heart of everything we do.  In 2024/25 the Accident frequency rate remains at 0.10.  We recognise there is no room for complacency and remain firmly focused on reducing this figure as we continue to strengthen our safety culture.  We have launched Safer Every Day a new company-wide health and safety initiative designed to embed a culture where safety is second nature and consistently prioritised across all areas of our operations.   

Odour and noise nuisance


The nature of our Water Recycling Centres and the job they do means there are sometimes odour and noise impacts.  We do our best to keep these to a minimum.

Traffic disruption


Sometimes our operational work requires us to use traffic management such as narrowing, diversions or closures so that we can carry out essential emergency repairs, conduct maintenance or install new assets.  We work closely with local councils and Highways to minimise the disruption to road users, communities and businesses.

Affordability and vulnerability


As an essential service provider, we recognise our duty to deliver wider benefits to society and for the millions of customers in our region.  Supporting and enabling our customers who may need extra help is a core pillar in upholding that duty and delivering on our Purpose.

In 2018 we developed a Vulnerability strategy in collaboration with our customers, to provide a greater level of support in response to the cost-of-living crisis and a global pandemic. 

Between 2020-2025, we delivered over £300 million in support for vulnerable customers. We will continue to deliver this level of support for customers 2025 onwards, with the addition of a new Medical Needs Discount funded by our shareholders to provide direct financial support to those with specific medical needs that create a higher water dependency.

In 2024/25, we provided financial support to 405,425 customers, exceeding our Ofwat affordability target by 95,264.  Customers benefit from a range of affordability support, including payment breaks, concessionary tariffs, forgiveness schemes and temporary instalment plans.  This year we awarded £0.8 million from the Anglian Water Assistance Fund and matched £0.9 million of payments made by customers through our Back on Track Scheme.  The impact of our support was significantly higher in 2023/24 mainly because of a one off debt relief exercise.

Skills and future workforce: provision of job opportunities


With ongoing investments in infrastructure and a commitment to supporting British businesses, the water industry can be a catalyst for sustainable growth and job creation.  We cannot deliver our ambitious plans for the future of this region without a great team of people. Our Strategic Workforce Plan will ensure we have a sustainable workforce across our organisation and our alliances that support us to deliver on our ambitions.  

We are also committed to supporting more apprenticeships, attract a diverse workforce and support development of modern green skills, including our sponsorship towards a £4 million net zero training centre at the College of West Anglia in Wisbech. 

We have measured our impact for the assessment based on salaries and investment in apprenticeships.   This has increased following a natural growth in headcount as the business has expanded in AMP7 (2020-25).  Areas such as continual learning, employee development and career progression opportunities are areas we actively support but at this stage we don’t have a mechanism to quantify and value them in our impact assessment.

Local supply chain spend


We work closely with our suppliers collaborating to deliver against our Purpose.  This will continue to be even more important over 2025 to 2030 as we prepare to double our investment programme.  We have the ability to make a significant impact through how we engage local suppliers and partners who share our purpose driven values.  We are working on a mechanism to value the impact of our work with local suppliers.

Community investment 


Supporting our customers and bringing social prosperity to the region we serve is central to our Purpose.  We have a vast outreach programme and community activities across Anglian Water, supported by a community mapping tool which is helping us target our activities to localised areas to deliver maximum impact.  We are working on a mechanism to value the social value impact of our activities to include in the Purpose impact assessment next year.