Olympic sized water savings for North West schools and businesses

Every drop counts – more than 4,750 organisations are saving water and money after taking part in a region-wide water efficiency project.

United Utilities has worked in partnership with Groundwork and Cenergist and business water retailers to deliver water efficiency visits to organisations including schools, care homes, leisure centres, public sector and small businesses across the North West.

By identifying and repairing leaky taps, toilets and showers, and installing water efficiency measures, 3.8 million litres of water – enough to fill one and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools – are being saved every day.

As well as helping to protect water resources in the region, the organisations that have taken part are now benefitting from lower water bills.

Alice Denholm, Water efficiency delivery manager at United Utilities explained: “The North West is one of the rainiest areas in the UK and we know that saving water isn’t always something people think about in the same way they do about saving energy. But water is a precious resource, and we can all play our part in saving it one drop at a time.

“Our ambition was to help as many organisations as possible to reduce water use and save money. To help us achieve this we worked with several water retailers across the region. They did a great job engaging with their customers to encourage take-up.

The water efficiency visits were carried out by Groundwork and Cenergist. Alice added: “They did a brilliant job of tracking down water leaks and installing water saving devices such as tap inserts and save-a-flush bags.”

One of the business water retailers United Utilities worked with was Water Plus.

Scott MacIndeor, Head of technical water efficiency at Water Plus, said: “It’s been brilliant to be involved in this, drawing on our experience in this area with customers, engaging more than 3,600 businesses and public sector locations, so they become more water efficient and make financial savings."