What should a water contingency plan for business include?

Water disruptions are becoming a growing concern for businesses across the UK with 46% of large companies and 39% of SMEs experiencing a water disruption within a 12‑month period according to our own research.

Whether caused by infrastructure failures, planned maintenance, contamination incidents or extreme weather, disruptions can cost water-dependent businesses anywhere from £2,000 to £50,000 per hour in operational downtime or even more depending on the sector.

These very real costs can start right from the minute water supply ceases, whereas the steps to recover from them, from insurance claims to reputational repair, can take months or longer to even begin to fix the damage done.

While many organisations have robust plans for power outages and IT failures, water is often overlooked until a disruption occurs. A well-designed water contingency plan helps ensure businesses can continue operating when normal supplies are unavailable.

Why water contingency planning matters

For many businesses, water is a critical utility. It’s essential for manufacturing, cooling systems, sanitation, employee welfare, energy generation, food production, healthcare operations and countless other sectors.

A disruption on break in supply can immediately impact employers’ duties, for example workplace welfare regulations. While businesses that are legally-bound to operate with potable water, such as food manufacturers, will be unable to maintain production without their ongoing supply.

There may well be additional complications for companies to navigate. For example, for those based in England, they will need to know whether their key point of contact in the event of a disruption is their retailer or wholesaler. They will also have to work around the fact that in any emergency situation water utilities will always prioritise households.

Without a clear plan, a water supply interruption can quickly become a business continuity crisis. A contingency plan helps organisations minimise downtime, protect customers and employees, maintain compliance and access alternative supplies when required and needs to follow a clear path if it is to be impactful from the moment it is required:

1. Assess risks and vulnerabilities

The first step is identifying how your business uses water and which operations are most dependent on it. Every site, process and system has different risks inherent to its specific circumstances. A robust contingency plan should both identify all potential points of failure and evaluate how likely they are to affect operations if such a failure does occur.

This means:

• Undertaking a comprehensive review of all sites to fully understand their specific water requirements and the existing water infrastructure and storage.
• Identifying primary and backup water supply sources (if any).
• Noting conditions and vulnerabilities specific to each site, such as flooding risks, infrastructure weaknesses, reliance on a single water source and natural and geographic hazards.

Water Direct’s Water Resilience Maturity Index is a free and useful tool for organisations to assess their current water resilience status.

2. Water usage profile

Every organisation needs to have a thorough understanding of how it uses and relies on water if it is to plan effectively for disruption.

This includes:

• Documenting all processes requiring water, from production to sanitation.
• Assessing average and peak uses of water to enable a clear picture of actual minimum water requirements to be calculated.

More detail on how best to approach this can be found in our blog on how to calculate a site’s emergency water requirements.

3. Identify alternative water supply options

Alternative water supply options for maintaining supply include things such as portable temporary storage tanks, water tankering services, bulk bottled water deliveries. If they are going to be available for your site, you need to know where AWS providers who can deliver your requirements are located and what their capabilities and ways of working are.

It’s also critical to identify any of your processes that require specialist water supplies so that their provision is explicitly included in discussions with AWS providers and any subsequent contingency plan.

4. Create a clear emergency response plan

When a disruption occurs, everyone needs to know what happens next.

These emergency protocols need to include:

• The immediate action plan that outlines the steps to take when a disruption occurs, including notifying key personnel and activating contingency plans.
• A communications framework that details how information is to flow internally and externally to ensure all stakeholders are informed during a disruption.
• Defined roles and clear responsibilities and accountabilities so everyone knows their role.

5. Quality assurance

Confidence that any proposed alternative water supply will not in any way compromise quality is essential for any contingency plan.

This requires:

• Specifying the water quality benchmarks that must be met when using alternative supply.
• Defining the testing protocols that must be in place, including frequency, methods and the roles and individuals responsible.
• Getting assurances from the supplier that alternative drinking water meets UK standards, agreeing what will happen if it doesn’t.

Contingency planning in action

Having pre-arranged supply agreements in place can significantly reduce response times and operational risk.

Lockheed Martin UK is the British arm of global defence technology company Lockheed Martin Corporation. An uninterrupted water supply at their facility in Ampthill is essential to maintain mission-critical operations. Any disruption brings severe risks including operational downtime that could compromise strict production targets, result in major financial losses as well as potential breaches of regulatory and security requirements.

When a significant water outage in the local area left the facility without a guaranteed emergency supply, the company turned to Water Direct. We delivered both an immediate emergency alternative water supply and implemented a long-term water resilience strategy with WaterTight, our contingency planning and business continuity solution.

With WaterTight in place, Lockheed Martin UK future-proofed their water supply and emergency response capabilities. As a result, when another incident occurred, the company was able to call Water Direct who dispatched security-approved field technicians within two hours, ensuring immediate access to emergency water supplies and temporary water storage units.

When is WaterTight the right solution?

For organisations where a water interruption could stop production, affect customers, compromise compliance, or threaten critical infrastructure, contingency planning alone may not be enough.

WaterTight, the UK’s only assured response guarantee, combines bespoke contingency planning with assured rapid water response, giving businesses confidence that alternative supplies can be mobilised rapidly when normal services fail. With guaranteed response commitments and tailored planning support, it helps turn contingency plans into action when needed.

Don’t wait for an emergency

The most effective contingency plans are developed before they’re needed and then tested and reviewed regularly.

If a water supply interruption would significantly impact your operations, Water Direct’s contingency planning team offer a free initial consultation to help assess your risks and determine whether WaterTight is the right solution for your business.