Since privatisation the water sector has spent £126bn on on building and maintaining water and sewerage services. Water companies’ spending divides into operating expenditure, for the day-to-day running of services, and capital expenditure on refurbishing or replacing assets, and on new assets. As the graph shows the largest proportion of spending since 2000 relates to maintaining existing services to customers. Spending on other aspects of service has varied depending on decisions about service priorities, with proportionately more spent on quality enhancements since 2010.
