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Perpignan Urban Community Implementation of water tariffs convergence

Since 2011, IOWater has helped the Perpignan-Mediterranean Urban Community for the establishment of a consistent and adapted pricing strategy for the 72 transferred municipal water and sewerage utilities.
 
After determining equilibrium tariffs in 2012 and their evolution up to 2015, the International Office for Water helped the Urban Community on with the pricing convergence and the development of a social and environmental pricing of the water and sanitation services of the 15 towns directly managed by it.
 
Indeed, if the pooling of technical services is currently effective, financial management remains at the municipal level: Municipalities with an unfavorable geographical, hydrological and environmental situation support major investments, ultimately causing a high price of their water and sanitation services.
For neighboring consumers depending of the same Urban Community utility, the pricing structure and the price may be very different. After studying several convergence time scenarios, several assumptions for the evolution of the billing basis (consumers and volume) and different levels of investment, while maintaining the total revenue of the service, the Perpignan-Mediterranean elected officials decided to gradually harmonize their pricing over the next six years (2015-2020).
 
After establishing convergence, the maximum increase in the annual water and sewerage bill will not exceed € 31 (taxes not included) when it could have reached 54 € (taxes not included) in some municipalities.
For delegation-managed municipalities, pricing convergence will be effective in 2015 in the Central Area (Perpignan and three neighboring municipalities) and 2016 for the Littoral Area (“Canet en Roussillon” and 4 neighboring municipalities).
Secondly, pricing will evolve towards a more social and incentive approach to water saving (pricing by consumption blocks) while guaranteeing a sufficient level of revenue for the development and adaptation of the services to the future challenges.  

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