Anglian Water Services Limited supplies water to about 3.9 million people living in East Anglia, Lincolnshire, South Humberside and parts of Essex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. Over half of the Company's water supplies come from boreholes. The remainder comes from reservoirs and rivers. The Company has 148 treatment works and distributes water through a network of 33,000 km of pipes and 392 service reservoirs.


Each year water companies are inspected. The 1995 inspection found that the Company's arrangements for sampling, analysis and reporting, and its treatment processes were generally very good. Progress with improvement programmes was satisfactory. Fourteen recommendations for improvements in practices were made.


The quality of the water supplied by the Company in 1995 has been generally very good. 99.8% of the 345,247 tests performed by the Company met the standards - the tests were largely made on samples taken from consumers' taps. Of the 0.2% of tests that did not meet the standards some were for coliform bacteria. Each time these bacteria were detected the cause was investigated and any problems identified were corrected. Other significant failures to meet the standards were for nitrite, nitrate, iron, PAH and pesticides. For each of these substances the Company is carrying out an improvement programme. There were significant improvements in compliance with the standards for iron, nitrate and an individual pesticide.


The graph above shows the continued good water quality over the past five years. The Company, as it must, plans to improve the quality even further. It has given legally binding commitments to take steps to remove pesticides, nitrite, nitrate and improve its water mains. Traces of nitrate and pesticides can enter water sources and the Company has almost completed the programme of installation of treatment to remove them at works. Iron, turbidity and PAH arise from old water mains and the Company is continuing the replacement or repair of these.


If you want more detailed information about the quality of drinking water in your local area please contact the Company. Their telephone number is 01223 372000.

     


The Drinking Water Inspectorate checks that your drinking water is properly tested and that action is taken to put right breaches of standards. The results of the tests given overleaf have been carefully audited and give an accurate picture of the quality of water supplied by the company.

Drinking water standards in England and Wales include all those in the European Community Directive on drinking water and are mainly based on levels recommended by the World Health Organisation. Those of significance to health have generally been set with a wide safety margin. The occasional breaches of the standards which have happened do not mean the water was not suitable for drinking.

The Inspectorate assesses each breach of the standards and if necessary requires water companies to give legally binding undertakings to carry out improvements.

The summary of the 1995 Report gives the results of tests for England and Wales as a whole and sets out in more detail how the quality of your drinking water is checked and the significance of each of the listed substances. Printed copies of each Water Company Summary, and the Summary of the 1995 Report are available from :

The Drinking Water Inspectorate
Room B155
Romney House
43 Marsham Street
London SW1P 3PY

Telephone: 0171 276 8808/8666

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Reviewed 1 October 1996