History
The company originated as the Wessex Water Authority, one of ten regional water authorities established by the Water Act 1973. Privatised, in 1989, Wessex Water Services Limited was purchased by Enron in July 1998 for $2.4 billion. Following that company's collapse Wessex Water was sold to YTL Power International of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2002.
The company is headquartered on the edge of Bath in Claverton Down, in a new energy efficient building by Bennetts Associates and Buro Happold.
The water authority acquired the assets and duties of a number of public sector and local authority water utilities:
- Bristol Avon River Authority
- Somerset River Authority
- Avon and Dorset River Authority (except the part of the area of that drains to the River Lim)
- Bath Corporation
- Dorset Water Board
- North Wilts Water Board
- South Wilts Water Board
- Wessex Water Board
- West Somerset Water Board
- West Wilts Water Board
- Bournemouth and District Water Company †
- Bristol Waterworks Company
- Cholderton and District Water Company †
- West Hampshire Water Company †
- West Lulworth Water Undertaking
Read more about this topic: Wessex Water
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)