Thames Water 20 Years

Steve Shine, Thames Water's Chief Operating Officer, said: "Last year was our best-ever year operationally - best-ever water quality, best-ever sewage works compliance and leakage targets hit three years running.

"This is no accident. It's the result of hard work and spending wisely, particularly in the last three years since we came under new ownership and adopted a 'back-to-basics' approach, offloading foreign interests and focussing solely on serving customers in London and the Thames Valley.

"Thames Water inherited a rickety, leak-ridden Victorian network in 1989. It's still creaking in parts and there's a lot of work still to do. But we have made huge improvements and are determined to go on to achieve world-class standards of efficient service for our customers."

Thames Water, which has invested GBP4bn - that's GBP2.2m a day - in the past five years, has:

• the best water quality of all water and sewerage companies in England and Wales - 99.99% compliant with Drinking Water Inspectorate standards (2008);

• cut leakage 24% in the past four years; replacing 1,300 miles (2,100km) - 11 times round the M25 - of worn-out Victorian water mains under London since 2002;

• maintained in 2009 its best-ever sewage works compliance achieved in 2007 and 2008;

• seen customer complaints fall 27 per cent in the last year;

• spent GBP400m since 2005 protecting 5,500 properties from the risk of sewer flooding.