Welsh Water: £77m profit to reinvest in water network

Snowdonia's Llyn Padarn is Wales' first freshwater bathing lake after water treatment investment

Welsh Water says an increased £77m profit for 2014-15 will help it deliver £1.7bn of investment in its network over the next five years.

The latest figures, released on Thursday, are up from an underlying profit of £50m on the previous year.

It comes just weeks after plans to cut 360 posts over five years were announced as part of savings.

The firm said it is investing almost £1m a day in services - without hikes in customer bills.

Welsh Water's chief executive Chris Jones told BBC Wales that the results reflected a "very good performance" for the company.

He said because the firm had a not-for-profit business model and no shareholders, the entire surplus would be reinvested.

"We've got a programme now of investment over the next five years that will be getting on for nearly £2bn - that's going to enable us to do an awful lot," he added.

The company's priorities include improving customer services by investing in the water pipe network, looking at how to combat climate change and how drainage systems can cope in the future.

It has already invested £15m in the RainScape drainage schemes in parts of Carmarthenshire and Swansea and is setting aside £60m for similar schemes.

Mr Jones said last month's jobs announcement reflected the need to keep up investment in water services while keeping customer bills down.

He told BBC Wales the redundancies would be part of a voluntary programme as part of efficiency targets set by the industry watchdog, Ofwat.