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Private water supplies

A private water supply is any water supply which is not a public supply provided by Severn Trent/South Staffs Water. Sources of private water supplies include wells, boreholes, springs, streams, rivers, lakes or ponds. The supply may serve one or more properties.

New regulations have come into force under the Private Water Supply Regulations 2009. The regulations impose new monitoring duties and require the local authority to carry out a risk assessment on specific areas of the supply.

South Derbyshire District Council Responsibilities

The Council has to monitor private water supplies. The Regulations set out monitoring requirements from which we develop our annual sampling programme, as follows:

  • For small supplies (of less than 10m³/day) the monitoring is based on the conclusions of the risk assessment.

  • Larger PWS (greater than 10m³/day), and supplies to commercial or public premises, will require check and audit monitoring

  • Local authorities must keep records of all private water supplies including private distribution systems.

  • We have sent information about our supplies to the Secretary of State (in practice the Drinking Water Inspectorate) for each supply, as required by the Regulations.

The Regulations set out procedures we must follow if we consider a private water supply is unwholesome. This includes requirements to:

  • Investigate the cause;

  • Inform the user(s) if the supply constitutes a potential danger to human health;

  • Give the user(s) advice to allow them to minimise any such potential danger;

  • Liaise with the Health Protection Agency to seek advice on whether there is potential danger to human health.

If a supply needs to be improved, we will liaise informally with supply owner/users to prevent potential dangers to human health. If an informal approach does not achieve this then there are other options open to us in the Regulations, including serving notices.
We are able to make reasonable charges, to cover their costs for carrying out their duties under the Regulations, up to maximum limits set out in the Regulations and agreed fees and charges are shown below. We have to complete a risk assessment of each PWS in the first five years after the Regulations come into force. This duty does not apply to supplies to single non-commercial dwellings unless a risk assessment is requested.

Example risk assessments can be seen on the Government's official Private Water Supplies website www.privatewatersupplies.gov.uk. This site currently relates mainly to Scotland but will be updated with new examples and guidance.

We must keep records of all private water supplies and send annual returns to the Drinking Water Inspectorate for each supply including:

  • the name / unique ID of the supply

  • the type of source

  • the geographical location using a grid reference

  • an estimate of the number of people supplied

  • an estimate of the average daily volume of water supplied

  • the type of premises supplied

  • details of any treatment process, together with its location 

If you have a private water supply that is currently registered and would like to arrange for a sample to be taken, or would like further advice on treatment methods or other private water supply matters, please contact the Housing Team.

Maximum fees

Service (activity)Maximum fee (£)
Risk assessment (each assessment)£500
Sampling (each visit)£100
Investigation (each investigation)£100
Granting an authorisation (each)£100
  
  
Analysing a sample 
Taken under Regulation 10£25
Taken during check monitoring£100
Taken during audit monitoring£500

 

page ref: SDDC 553  

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