Water Saving Week: Why tackling leaks is the fastest way to protect our water future

During Water Saving Week, much of the conversation focuses on garden water usage, shorter showers and turning off taps. While these behaviours matter, a lot, the reality is far bigger and far more urgent.

Across England and Wales, billions of litres of treated water are lost every day through leakage. In fact, leakage remains one of the most significant and preventable environmental challenges facing the UK today. As demand rises and climate pressures intensify, reducing water loss is no longer optional, it’s essential.

The hidden problem beneath our feet

Water leakage occurs in two critical areas:

• Water infrastructure
• Customer-owned supply pipes

While utilities are actively investing in network improvements, it’s often overlooked that around 30% of leaks occur on customer-owned pipes, hidden underground, out of sight and frequently undetected for years.

This is where real change can happen quickly.

Moving from reactive to preventative solutions

Historically, the industry has focused on reactive repairs, fixing leaks once they appear. But this approach often shifts the problem elsewhere along an ageing infrastructure.

Sanivar has long advocated for a more proactive approach: preventative, trenchless pipe rehabilitation.

As highlighted in previous industry discussions, relying solely on repair strategies will not deliver the long-term outcomes needed to meet leakage reduction targets.

Instead, modern trenchless technologies offer a smarter solution:

• Reinforcing pipes before failure
• Extending asset life
• Reducing repeat interventions
• Minimising disruption

Supporting water companies: futureproofing infrastructure

Sanivar’s trenchless lining systems will enable water companies to rehabilitate ageing infrastructure without extensive excavation.

These solutions:

• Maintain water supply even if host pipes fail
• Reduce the need for repeated repairs
• Lower carbon emissions compared to traditional methods
• Accelerate progress towards leakage reduction targets

This shift takes us from repair to resilience, a critical move if the UK is to meet its goal of halving leakage in the coming decades.

Tackling customer-side leakage: the missing piece

Customer-side leakage is often harder to address, but it’s also where some of the biggest gains can be made.

Sanivar’s Neofit+Plus solution directly addresses this challenge.

This advanced liner:

• Is installed with a safe, no dig approach offering minimal disruption
• Seals leaks and pinholes within existing pipes
• Prevents contamination, including from lead pipes (supporting  ongoing health issues associated with lead pipes)
• Extends pipe lifespan by over 100 years

By targeting supply pipes at the property level, Neofit+Plus helps close a critical gap in the UK’s leakage strategy.

Stop leaks, save habitats

Leakage isn’t just a technical issue – it’s an environmental one.

Every litre lost:

• Wastes energy used in treatment and pumping
• Increases carbon emissions
• Reduces water availability for ecosystems and wildlife

By fixing leaks, both in the network and at the customer level, we protect rivers, habitats and future supply. And in the backdrop of the continued cost of living challenge in the UK, there is a real societal value in fixing running leaks on metered supplies, particularly for vulnerable users.

Making change today

The technology to significantly reduce leakage already exists.

What’s needed now is action:

• Adopting proven solutions at scale
• Shifting from reactive to preventative thinking
• Addressing leakage across the entire system, not just the visible parts

Water Saving Week is a reminder that saving water isn’t just about behaviour, it’s about infrastructure, innovation and making smarter choices today.