{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/water-supply-and-sewerage-services-customer-service-standards-amendment-regulations-1993/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/water-supply-and-sewerage-services-customer-service-standards-amendment-regulations-1993/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/1993/500",
  "legislation_title": "The Water Supply and Sewerage Services (Customer Service Standards) (Amendment) Regulations 1993",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/water-supply-and-sewerage-services-customer-service-standards-amendment-regulations-1993",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Regulations)\nThese Regulations amend the Water Supply and Sewerage Services (Customer Service Standards) Regulations 1989 (“the principal Regulations”), which provide for customers of water and sewerage undertakers to be entitled to a payment or credit where the undertaker fails to maintain certain minimum standards of service in connection with the supply of water or sewerage services. The amendments are as follows.\nThe right to a payment or credit is no longer restricted to domestic customers, or to customers who are liable to pay the undertaker’s charges, and the sum payable by undertakers in respect of a failure to meet the relevant standards is increased from £5 to £10.\nUndertakers who make an appointment to visit a customer must specify, not only the day on which the visit will take place, but also whether or not it will take place after 1.00p.m. A failure to do so, or to keep an appointment as specified, entitles the customer to a payment or credit from the undertaker.\nRegulation 4 of the principal Regulations requires undertakers to respond within a prescribed period to queries about accounts and requests to change payment arrangements. This is amended to make it clear that the regulation applies to requests to pay by instalments or to alter the frequency of payments.\nRegulation 5 of the principal Regulations, which requires undertakers to respond to certain complaints within a specified period, is amended so as to apply to any complaints in connection with the supply of water and sewerage services.\nA failure to give 24 hours' notice of a planned interruption of the water supply which lasts for more than four hours now entitles the customer to a payment or credit. The standard for the period within which a water undertaker should restore supply after it has been interrupted or cut off because of a leak or burst in a strategic main is reduced from72 to 48 hours.\nWhere a water undertaker fails to install a meter requested by a customer within15 working days of payment of the installation charge the customer is entitled to a payment or credit.\nWhere effluent from a sewerage undertaker’s sewer enters a customer’s building the customer is entitled, subject to certain exceptions, to a refund of the year’s sewerage charges, up to a maximum of £1,000.\nUnder the principal Regulations, a customer is entitled to a payment or credit only if he submits a written request to the undertaker. The entitlement to a payment or credit in respect of a failure to keep an appointment, failure to respond to account queries and requests to change payment arrangements, failure to respond to complaints, or failure to install a meter is now made automatic. If the undertaker does not make the relevant payment or credit in these cases the customer may claim a further payment.\nRegulation 9 of the principal Regulations provides that customers are not entitled to a payment if at the time of the claim they have a debt to the undertaker outstanding for more than 6 weeks, although they may be entitled to a credit in certain circumstances. Customers in arrears who would otherwise be entitled to a payment under the principal Regulations are now entitled to a credit in all circumstances.\nReferences to provisions of the Water Act 1989 have been replaced by references to the corresponding provisions of the Water Industry Act 1991.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1993/500/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T14:03:24.741613+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}