Heat network regulation goes live on 27 January 2026 – Are you complying
26 January 2026
Insight Hub
20 January 2026
White Paper or White Flag? And the BIG RED LINES. Defra’s New Vision for Water and the Test of Deliverability PART A – THOUGHTS FOR INDUSTRY What’s happening? A New Vision for Water (CP 1490), published in January 2026, sets out a once-in-a-generation reform agenda for England’s water sector. It responds to the Independent Water…
Read more15 September 2025
Introduction: A Watershed Moment for the UK Water Sector Steve Gummer and Allan Owen, Partners in Sharpe Pritchard’s Infrastructure Department are the authors of the case summary for the Cunliffe Report’s latest findings. It is easy to get lost in headlines about regulators being abolished and water company profiteering. However, the Independent Water Commission’s final…
Read more24 July 2025
It’s been a heck of a week for water regulation. The Cunliffe report, published on Monday, lit a fuse that could fundamentally change how the UK regulates its water sector. Yet, as we noted earlier this week, Cunliffe might not be exactly what it first appears: The potentially revolutionary aspect of Cunliffe isn’t the abolition…
Read more21 July 2025
It is easy to get lost in headlines about regulators being abolished and water company profiteering. However, the Independent Water Commission’s final report, chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe and published on 21 July 2025, sets out the most ambitious overhaul of the UK water sector since privatisation. With 88 formal recommendations, the Cunliffe Report outlines…
Read more10 July 2025
We heard in the news yesterday (9 July 2025) that the fourth subsidy control challenge is being brought before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (the “CAT”). The challenge is to be brought by Bristol Airport against the Welsh Government’s subsidy to Cardiff International Airport (the “Airport”). The subsidy is an award of up to £205 million…
Read more20 June 2025
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have long played a central, if controversial, role in UK infrastructure delivery. For over twenty years, models like the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and its successor, PF2, underpinned investments across schools, hospitals, justice buildings and transport networks. Yet by the end of the 2010s, these models were widely discredited. Concerns over inflexibility,…
Read more18 June 2025
The UK’s new heat network zoning framework (the outlines for which were drawn by the Energy Act 2023) is set to redefine how low‑carbon heating is delivered by creating geographic zones, where district heat networks are the mandated, optimal solution. It’s an enticing proposition: guaranteed customer bases in each zone, ripe for financing and scaling….
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