Veolia Water Central (formerly Three Valleys Water) was a privately owned company supplying water to Hertfordshire and parts of Surrey, North London and Bedfordshire, in England. It was owned by

Veolia Environnement Veolia Environnement S.A., branded as Veolia, is a French transnational company with activities in three main service and utility areas traditionally managed by public authorities – water management, waste management and energy services. It pr ...

, a French company with international interests in the water, waste management, energy and transportation sectors. Veolia Water Central was sold along with its sister companies Veolia Water Southeast and Veolia Water East to

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

and

M&G Investments M&G plc is a global investment manager headquartered in the City of London. Since its de-merger from Prudential plc, it has been listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History Pre-2000 Municipal & Ge ...

in 2012. The three companies were merged to form

Affinity Water Affinity Water is a UK supplier of drinking water to 3.8 million people in parts of London, eastern and south eastern England. The company is owned by a consortium of Allianz, HICL and DIF Tamblin. Affinity Water was established through the pur ...

on 1 October 2012.

History

The company was formed as Three Valleys Water in 1994 by the merger of the

Colne Valley The Colne Valley is a steep sided valley on the east flank of the Pennine Hills in the English county of West Yorkshire. It takes its name from the River Colne which rises above the town of Marsden and flows eastward towards Huddersfield. ...

, Rickmansworth and Lee Valley Water companies. North Surrey Water joined the group in October 2000. The company was renamed Veolia Water Central Limited in 2009. In 2012, following the sale of Veolia Water's UK water supply business, it was merged with

Veolia Water Southeast Veolia Water Southeast (formerly Folkestone & Dover Water Services) was a privately owned company supplying water in south east Kent, England. The company's chairman was Paul Sabin. History The history of the Company can be traced back to Folkes ...

and

Veolia Water East Veolia Water East, formerly known as Tendring Hundred Water Services, was a privately owned company supplying water to the Tendring peninsula in north east Essex within an area of . In July 2009, the company, a subsidiary of Veolia Water UK sinc ...

to form

on 1 October 2012.

Supply area

The area served lay to the north and west of London, including parts of Hertfordshire,

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

, Buckinghamshire,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

and Surrey. The company depended heavily upon the local

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

for its supplies. Eventually due to a combination of lower than average rainfall and growing demand, the aquifer became depleted. This affected the environment as some watercourses become seasonal and domestic users were subject to drought restrictions, for the first time for many years. This may have been a contributing factor in the outbreak of

Cryptosporidium parvum ''Cryptosporidium parvum'' is one of several species that cause cryptosporidiosis, a parasitic disease of the mammalian intestinal tract. Primary symptoms of ''C. parvum'' infection are acute, watery, and nonbloody diarrhea. ''C. parvum'' in ...

in March 1997 when Three Valleys had to ask 300,000 consumers in Hertfordshire and thousands more in the London boroughs of Harrow and Brent to boil water. The health warning also caused the closure of schools in affected areas. The source was never isolated though several water supply boreholes in the Chalk aquifer between St Albans and Bushey contained the pathogen.

Hemel Hempstead Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500. Developed after the Second World War as a new ...

lay within the company's area. After the major fire at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal at Buncefield, efforts were made to deal with contaminants to the local aquifer and bore holes.

References

External links

Affinity Water, Our history

Veolia Water website
{{Authority control Water Central Former water companies of England British companies established in 1994 Companies disestablished in 2012 1994 establishments in England 2012 disestablishments in England Companies based in Welwyn Hatfield