Developing our Price Plan 2023-28

We're constantly planning for our future and we ask our customers to think water and beyond to help shape our future services, projects, priorities and pricing. Every five years, we are required to submit a plan to the Essential Services Commission that outlines our proposed prices, service levels, projects and infrastructure investments.  Based on what we've heard from our customers, we've developed a Price Plan for the next five years, which will see us invest in our region for future growth and prosperity, and also committing to balance sustainability with population growth and a changing climate. 

This Price Plan ensures we leave our region in the best possible shape for future generations.

We encourage you to take the time to read through the draft plan. We will have a Price Plan Summary available soon.

► Read more in our draft plan (PDF, 4MB)

Our plan aims to balance regional prosperity with affordability - investing in our services and infrastructure while keeping bills low and predictable. 

We heard from more than 3,000 people during the past year - through surveys, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, at volunteer group meetings and at pop-up water cafes. Your input has been really important in helping us understand customer and community priorities and expectations, so that we can build a pricing submission that reflects community desires and needs and sees us continue to deliver quality services.

You can find out more about each stage of our pricing submission development at the links below.

About our plan

We start our next price period in a strong position - we currently deliver great services at a low cost. Our average household bills are the lowest in Australia and customers have told us we deliver value for money. 
Our financial position is strong and we continue to perform well in our current Price Plan. 

But reducing prices over the last five years, along with increasing service delivery costs, leaves us in a position where we can’t give customers what they want without some rise in prices.

For this price period we will continue to put “customers at the core”.

We will keep prices low and predictable over the next five years and beyond, while we address the things that customers value most: 

• maintaining and improving infrastructure to keep delivering reliable and high quality services
• increasing water pressure in towns that need it, especially where there is strong growth
• digitally transforming the business to deliver services more efficiently
• supporting more customers who need our help
• reducing our carbon emissions to meet the 2035 net zero target, creating local benefits where we can
• increasing water security to meet future demands in a changing climate
• building projects with community and industry to make our region healthier and more prosperous.

Highlights of our plan

• Boosting our capital expenditure program by an additional $74 million to invest in assets and infrastructure to cater for population growth and climate impacts
• Investing $4 million in supporting and leading projects to support regional growth and prosperity
• An additional $3 million over the plan to reach our net zero emissions goals through locally beneficial carbon emissions reduction projects
• $2 million in additional funding for programs to support customers who have trouble paying their bill.

A snapshot of what our customers have told us:

"I would like you to promote drinking town water rather than the public buying bottled water. Research seems to suggest town water is better. We do not need plastic bottles littering our streets. I think how many plastic bottles would be used in 12 months if an individual drank only bottled water!"

"It would be good to have recycled water reticulated through the town so that gardens can use lower quality water."

"Solar powering of the processing of water is already of great benefit."

"Keep up the great work that they are doing now."

"I think everyone should play a part in looking after the region and making it better. We all need to deal with climate change but we also need to look after people who are in trouble & need support."

"I expect Goulburn Valley Water to supply water of good quality and as we are a country of regular droughts, to impose restrictions where necessary."

"[I expect] Good drinking water and plenty of it."

"[I expect] Clean water, good pressure and personalised customer service."

What's happened so far?

Phase 1

We began with conversations with our staff to understand what they think is important - after all, most of them are GVW customers as well! We've used their feedback to help inform early planning for the business as well as our pricing submission.

Between March and July, we engaged widely with our communities to understand people's broad values and opinions about future services and pricing. Where we could, we met with people face-to-face depending on restrictions or lockdowns, as well as inviting people to take a survey online, via a physical postcard we dropped at cafes and businesses in each town, or via a QR code on water bottles at cafes across our service area, or via an SMS link. We recieved a fantastic response - so thank you to those who shared their thoughts.

Phase 2

We analysed the feedback to give us some key topics to delve into further with our communities as part of our second phase of engagement. We asked people to share their preferences for additional investment on six topics identified through our first stage of engagement, such as regional leadership, carbon abatement options, support for vulnerable customers and investment in digital technologies, via our bill-a-bill tool. It showed how selecting different levels of investment impacted on bills for customer groups over one year and for the full five-year pricing period. Not all aspects of our pricing submission were represented in the tool - just a couple we are keen to know more about.

Phase 3

We further explored some key topics identified through the previous stage's build-a-bill process. We brought together a group of diverse customers that were representative of our customer base and asked them to deliberate on several themes carefully and in detail over a number of sessions, spread out over a couple of weeks. These explored bill impacts of different levels of service and projects, and we asked customers to provide advice on some decisions for our draft pricing submission, based on their deliberations.

Phase 4

We fed outcomes and customer feedback from the deliberative forum into our draft Pricing Submission. A draft was released for public consultation, before it was sent to our regulator, the Essential Services Commission in spring. They analysed it and consulted further with customers on our draft plan and their recommendations. The subsequent Price Plan 2023-28 will come into effect on July 1, 2023.

A snapshot of our first stage engagement

Frequently asked questions