Businesses in Northern Ireland face higher water bills

As part of the changes to non-domestic water and sewerage charges, measured business customers will see their combined water and sewerage bill increase by 6.9%, while unmeasured customers will see an increase of 8.4% to their combined bill.

Despite the price increases being above the rate of inflation, NI Water said it has held increases to “well below” the limit set by the utility regulator and has allowed the price of 10 litres of water to remain at 1p.

The new charges follow the regulator’s decision on the prices NI Water should charge business customers between 2010 to 2013.

NI Water director of finance & regulation Ronan Larkin, said: “The increases are unavoidable because of the effects of inflation and the substantial cost of necessary improvements to the water and sewerage infrastructure to meet standards and improve quality.

“However, we are very conscious that these are difficult economic times for our customers. We have, therefore, gained agreement to limit any tariff increases as much as possible.”

Carys Matthews