Building and Developing
Before you apply
There are some key things you need to know before you’re ready to apply for a new water connection. Once you have considered all of these you are all set to send us your application.
You're responsible for laying the underground service pipe to the property boundary and the internal plumbing. You can use any plumber or contractor to carry out this work.
We do have a list of approved plumbers. If you use a WaterMark plumber to install your service pipe and your internal plumbing we may not need to come out and inspect the work before we complete the connection. (We will carry out audit checks on a random selection of these jobs).
A small commercial property that is only using water for tea/toilet facilities would normally be connected by a standard 25mm or 32mm water connection. This would provide a flow rate of up to 1 litre per second and a minimum of 1.5 bar pressure at the boundary stop tap.
If your commercial property requires more than 1 litre per second or needs water for fire fighting purposes and or process water you are likely to need a large diameter connection which is 50mm and above.
We will need to know what size pipe you are proposing to use for your service pipe. This will be discussed when we visit you to prepare a quote.
If not, and you would like to know the position of the nearest main you can request a copy of our maps.
We will need you to supply a plan showing where you are hoping to lay the new service pipe to, if you do not know the exact position our existing water main show the indicative route and this can be discussed with you during our site visit.
If you think you need a new water main into the site, please follow the guidance on our site development pages.
If you need to cross any land owned by a third party to install your new service pipe you're responsible for arranging this.
If the existing water main is within private land we will arrange this with the land owner, this will be discussed during the site visit.
If there are and your commercial property affects those assets you may need to apply to have these diverted. Further guidance and information on assets.
If you're unsure you can request a copy of our maps.
If the site has previously been used for anything other than Greenfield land (undeveloped land in a city or rural area either used for agriculture, landscape design, or left to evolve naturally) we ask that you submit a soil report, also known as ground investigation report with your application which our labs will check.
If you can't submit a soil report, we will ask you to use protective pipe work instead of MDPE to ensure your new water supply and our network does not become contaminated.
If you know of any previous water supplies to the site and can provide us the details you may be able to reduce the cost of the infrastructure charges.
Our quotes are valid for 6 months. If you don’t think you’ll be ready for your connection in that time then now isn’t the right time to apply.