South West Water provides drinking water and waste water services throughout Cornwall and Devon and in small areas of Dorset and Somerset. South West Water came into being in 1989 with the privatisation of the water industry. It was originally formed by the Water Act 1973

Water Act 1973

The Water Act 1973 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reorganised the water, sewage and river management industry in England and Wales...

 as one of ten regional water authorities formed by a merger of various statutory and local authority water undertakings. South West Water is part of the Pennon Group

Pennon Group

Pennon Group plc is a British water utility and waste management company based in Exeter, Devon in the United Kingdom. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.-History:...

.

History

The following public utilities were taken over by the South West Water Authority in 1973:

• Cornwall River Authority
• Devon River Authority
• Avon and Dorset River Authority†
• Plymouth
  Plymouth
  Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
  
   County Borough
  County borough
  County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...
  
   Corporation
• East Cornwall Water Board
• East Devon Water Board
• North and Mid Cornwall Water Board
• North Devon Water Board
• South Cornwall Water Board
• South West Devon Water Board
• West Cornwall Water Board

† Only the area of the authority which drained into the River Lim.

It was the subject of an episode of the fly-on-the-wall documentary Back to the Floor

Back to the Floor (UK TV series)

Back to the Floor is a Reality-TV documentary series broadcast on BBC2 in the late 1990s and early 2000s in which CEOs or Top level managers Go undercover in their operations and take a junior/entry level job in their company. This give the bosses a lot think about during this exercise...

in 1997.

External links

• South West Water website http://www.southwestwater.co.uk/
• South West Water on www.thewaterplace.co.uk http://www.thewaterplace.co.uk/sww.htm
• History of SW Water in About.com on Pennon Group http://www.answers.com/topic/pennon-group-plc?cat=biz-fin