Mr. Chris Jones:

Our responsibilities are purely for the public network. If somebody wants to drill a borehole that is absolutely fine but it is their responsibility. I do not have the number of people who are not on our network but it will be a relatively small proportion, perhaps 3% of the total. If a new property joins the public network, which the vast majority do, they will pay a connection fee for the pipework to connect them to the system and an infrastructure charge, at approximately £200 per service, to reflect the value of the infrastructure that is being provided to them as a new customer. We are allowed to charge an amount, capped by the economic regulator, to new customers to reflect the fact that they are buying into an existing infrastructure system for which existing customers have paid.