It is important that we understand and respond to the views and expectations of our stakeholders, including our customers.

We listen to their views on our proposals and, where possible, change what we do to accommodate their feedback.

This is critical if we are to successfully implement what is currently our biggest-ever investment programme, ranging from flood relief projects to replacing ageing water mains.

Our Stakeholder Engagement team oversees communications for major engineering projects, liaises with local, regional and national government, and undertakes our public consultation exercises and customer research.

Who are our stakeholders?

Stakeholders are any individual or group that has an interest in our company. They include customers, employees, regulators, shareholders, suppliers and the wider community.

Within Thames Water, Stakeholder Engagement has responsibility for our relationship with national, regional and local government, MPs, the Consumer Council for Water, and non-governmental organisations and pressure groups.

Project communications

Our project communications experts keep customers and stakeholders informed about the reasons for our engineering works, how they will be affected, and what we are doing to reduce disruption.

Examples of projects include our Victorian mains replacement programme in London and schemes to protect homes and businesses from sewer flooding across our region.

Communication channels depend on the project, but include 'drop-in' sessions for local people, the distribution of leaflets and letters to customers and, for larger projects, briefings for business customers to attend.

• Find out more about our major projects 

Policy makers and elected representatives

We do not have any political affiliation as an organisation and have a strict policy that we do not make political donations of any sort.

Policy makers and elected representatives have a significant influence on how we operate, so we aim to build and maintain close relationships with them to inform them about our activities and plans in an open and transparent way.

We listen and change our plans where we can in light of what we are told, so that we can improve the service we provide our customers.

We meet many of the 143 MPs in our region individually to discuss projects affecting their constituencies.

Regional and local government

We work closely with key stakeholders in regional and local government to ensure we deliver the commitments in our regulatory contract.

We have developed good relationships with many of the authorities in our area, focusing on those where our engineering works and major sites are based.

We met with 25 local authorities to discuss our Business Plan for 2010 to 2015, including the City of Westminster, the London Boroughs of Newham, Richmond and Tower Hamlets, Oxfordshire County Council, Guildford Borough Council and Swindon Borough Council.

We have regular contact with London Assembly members and have worked hard to develop good relations with the Mayor and his advisers.

We are also in regular contact with pan-regional organisations, such as London Councils and the Association of Councils of the Thames Valley Region.

These relationships have helped us to better understand the priorities and challenges our stakeholders face, to improve the way we work together.

Public consultation

Listening to the views and understanding the expectations of our customers, employees and other stakeholders is very important to us.

We want to put our customers at the heart of everything we do and make sure their priorities are taken into account when we make our decisions.

To achieve this we need to involve our customers in our plans and listen to their views. We are committed to carrying out a wide range of consultation activities to help us do this.

We are corporate members of the Consultation Institute and undertake our consultations in accordance with Consultation Institute guidelines and the Government's Code of Practice on Consultation.

Our approach includes independently facilitated stakeholder workshops, discussions with MPs, workshops with customers and independently hosted online public consultations.

After each consultation, we summarise what we have been told and explain how the respondents' views have been considered in our planning. 

• Find out more about our public consultations