SPENDING on a second multi-million-pound reservoir cannot go ahead, a Government department has decided.
Bristol Water wanted to build the reservoir in Cheddar, but the water regulator Ofwat refused to allow it any spending on the project until at least 2020.
It also told Bristol Water to lower its prices.
Bristol Water appealed the decision to the Government’s Competition and Markets Authority, which has stood by Ofwat’s original decision.
Its report says: “We considered Bristol Water’s arguments on customers’ desire for resilience of supply, but found that Bristol Water had not provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that immediate investment in Cheddar 2 was necessary to achieve the resilience objective, or that customers would be willing to pay higher bills to finance this increase in security of supply.”
But it has allowed Bristol Water to invest £1million in carrying out treatment works at the existing reservoir.
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