Business water for farms and agriculture

A mixed dairy and arable farm we work with had three water meters across the holding. One on the farmhouse, one on the dairy parlour, and one on a building that had been a farm shop until 2015 and was now used as a workshop. The meter on the old farm shop was still being billed against the original retail tariff for a food-handling premises. The retailer hadn’t been told the use had changed. Eight years of paying the wrong tariff.

Farm water is more complicated than most commercial accounts. There’s the mains retail supply (which we can review). There’s the abstraction licence from the Environment Agency for any borehole, river or reservoir water (which sits outside the retail market). There’s any trade effluent from a dairy parlour, fruit processing or food production unit. And on a busy holding, none of it is in one place.

This page covers how we help UK farms and agricultural businesses review their mains water arrangements. The mechanics of switching are in our main business water switching guide. Our business water service covers the open UK market across every commercial sector.

How we help farms and agricultural businesses

We start with the mains water bills and the meters they cover. For most farms this is the farmhouse, the dairy parlour if applicable, livestock buildings, any worker accommodation and any on-site processing facilities. We pull every active SPID into one view.

From there we work through the retail tariff on each meter (is the use being charged correctly?), the standing charges across the meter set, trade effluent on the dairy or processing meter if applicable, and surface water drainage on yards and roofed areas. Where boreholes are involved, we’ll explain which water sits inside the procurement review and which sits with the Environment Agency licence.

Why farm water is different from a typical commercial account

Abstraction licences sit outside the retail market

If your farm abstracts water from a borehole, river or reservoir, the licence is held with the Environment Agency. Abstracted water doesn’t appear on a retailer’s invoice and isn’t subject to the retail market. We don’t renew abstraction licences. That sits with the Environment Agency.

Where it matters for the retail review: knowing which water sources are abstracted and which are mains lets us build an accurate picture of the bill. On farms that mix mains and borehole water, the mains bill should only reflect the mains use. We’ve seen cases where the metering arrangement was set up assuming pure mains and the bill never adjusted when the borehole came online.

Trade effluent on dairy and farm processing

Dairy parlours, on-farm fruit and veg processing, cheese making, ice cream production. Anywhere a farm runs a food production process, trade effluent applies. The consent and Mogden formula values determine what gets charged for discharge into the sewer.

Like any other sector, dairy and processing consents often don’t get reviewed once they’re in place. If the operation has grown, scaled back, or changed in any meaningful way, the trade effluent values may not match current reality. Worth reviewing.

Farm diversification and changing water profiles

A growing share of farms now run diversification activities alongside the main agricultural business. Holiday lets, glamping pitches, farm shops, wedding venues, cafés. Each of those changes the water profile and sometimes triggers different tariff requirements.

We’ll look at how the diversified parts of the business are metered and billed, and whether the retail arrangement reflects current use. Sometimes diversification adds enough demand to be worth its own meter; sometimes the existing arrangement is fine.

How a farm water review works