Customer engagement

As we develop a regional plan that provides “the best value to customers, society and the environment… to secure long-term resilience", we need to understand how we address both the challenges and opportunities for water resources.

This requires detailed insight into customers' preferences across a range of issues, as well as importantly testing the acceptability of our regional plan to ensure it meets their needs now and in the future.

We have recently completed Phase 2 of our research and the full report will be published soon.

In this phase we tested a number of alternative plans with costs to understand what the most acceptable plan for would be for the region's customers.

This complements our earlier Phase 1 work which explored customers views on options and best value criteria. The overall Summary research findings report, along with the detailed reports from the three research stages covered in Phase 1, can be found in the Documents section on this page. In the same place, you can also access specific reports produced for the Strategic Resource Options (SROs), which form part of the potential range of options we've considered for our plan.

We have also been working closely with the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) and the chairs of our member water companies' Independent Challenge Groups (ICGs). We have also formed a regional Customer Challenge Group (CCG) to share and enable challenge of our engagement approach and the materials we have been using - you can find copies of the updates we have provided to the Regional CCG in the Regional CCG meetings section of this page.

As we develop a regional plan that provides “the best value to customers, society and the environment… to secure long-term resilience", we need to understand how we address both the challenges and opportunities for water resources.

This requires detailed insight into customers' preferences across a range of issues, as well as importantly testing the acceptability of our regional plan to ensure it meets their needs now and in the future.

We have recently completed Phase 2 of our research and the full report will be published soon.

In this phase we tested a number of alternative plans with costs to understand what the most acceptable plan for would be for the region's customers.

This complements our earlier Phase 1 work which explored customers views on options and best value criteria. The overall Summary research findings report, along with the detailed reports from the three research stages covered in Phase 1, can be found in the Documents section on this page. In the same place, you can also access specific reports produced for the Strategic Resource Options (SROs), which form part of the potential range of options we've considered for our plan.

We have also been working closely with the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) and the chairs of our member water companies' Independent Challenge Groups (ICGs). We have also formed a regional Customer Challenge Group (CCG) to share and enable challenge of our engagement approach and the materials we have been using - you can find copies of the updates we have provided to the Regional CCG in the Regional CCG meetings section of this page.

  • WRSE engagement in the news

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    The work of WRSE, specifically the collaboration across member water companies on customer engagement, has featured in two key water industry publications in recent months.

    In January 2021, in an article for Utility Week, Ruth Williams talks with Trevor Bishop (WRSE Organisational Director) about how managing water resources to prevent flooding or droughts is a national concern, with regional planning groups bringing together their work to inform the bigger picture. Trevor focused on how the programme of customer engagement is key in identifying the priorities people have for their water supply and what they want the regional plan to deliver.

    The Water Report March 2021 edition featured an in depth interview with Trevor Bishop and Clare Carlaw on WRSE's engagement with customers, how the companies have collaborated to deliver both an efficient and effective engagement programme and how the environment is dominating concerns on both sides.




Page last updated: 13 Sep 2023, 03:16 PM