To fund the improvement programme, your water bill will increase by 5.6 % – if you have a meter – or 8.7% – if you don't have a meter.

Overall, we expect the average metered bill to rise by £21 to £397 per year while the average unmetered bill – the old 'water rates' – will increase by £40 to £686 per year.

Switching to a meter could save many people – but we should stress not all – hundreds of pounds. This means the overall average household bill in the region will actually only rise by 3.7 % to £497 in 2008/09.

We have worked hard to keep your bill as low as we can and still allow us to accomplish all the things our regulators – and you – rightly demand of us.

This year's increase will support the last phase of the £1.5 billion Clean Sweep programme, which has underpinned the region's economic growth and helped protect its environment since 1989.

We will also be investing in our network to keep top quality drinking water flowing to your homes and to maintain our industry-leading record on controlling leakage.

Currently, with your help, we are drawing up our priorities and proposals for the future of your water and sewerage services to 2015.

We already know next year's bill increase will be much smaller than in years past. After that, we want prices to be as stable as possible between 2010 and 2015.

To make that a reality while still delivering service improvements, we will strive to become even more efficient in what we do. This will help us to avoid passing increased costs onto our customers.