Question reference: S6W-20324
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 31 July 2023
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Current status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 28 August 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how much water it estimates was lost due to burst pipes in the Glasgow region in December 2022.
Answer
As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their answer is:
Scottish Water does not report or evaluate leakage based on parliamentary constituency area and it normally reports leakage on an annual basis to account for the effect of seasonal variations. However, it has estimated that the total leakage in the Glasgow region was recorded at 77.3 Ml/d in December 2022, a 19% increase over the previous month as a result of the extreme weather conditions.
Leakage management and reduction is a priority for teams across Scottish Water - finding and fixing the wide variety and complexity of leaks; these can range from low level "weeps and seeps" to large-scale bursts on the pipe network. Nationally they are responsible for 30,516 miles of water pipes across both urban and rural communities on the mainland and islands.
Despite the challenges, at the end of 2022-23 Scottish Water achieved its lowest ever level of leakage across Scotland, continuing the trend of year on year reductions in leakage since 2007.