Environment
MUA Considering Compulsory Water Meters
The taxpayer owned utility supplier says we use considerable higher water than other jursidictions.
Manx Utilities says it is considering making islanders to use meters as a way to bring down water usage.
The taxpayer owned utility supplier says we use considerable higher water than other jursidictions.
Looking to cut usage, it says that places that have compulsory water meters ‘have lower customer demand’ and as such it is considering either giving islanders the option of adding a meter or enforcing them on people.
The report says: ‘Recent studies have shown that demand can be reduced by up to 20% by the use of charging for water by quantity rather than solely rateable value. We currently have a number of commercial water meters but we have no domestic water meters.
‘To reduce demand we need to consider options to:
• Introduce compulsory fitting of water meters on all new properties
• Develop a charging tariff for water meters and start to levy the tariff on new properties
• Either:
– Making water meters optional on existing properties (at the customers expense), or;
-Making water meters compulsory on all domestic properties (at our expense).’
Leakage
Another contributor to the island’s high water demand is pipes leaking.
MU said: ‘The reported level of leakage is one of the lowest in the British Isles when considering leakage per kilometre of water mains (although approximately 10% higher than the UK average when using the measure of leakage per property per day).’
However, it says that that ‘biggest contributor is customer consumption of water and this is where our greatest focus will be’.
Read the full report here.
