United Utilities has pledged to invest an extra £80 million in a bid to stave off the threat of hosepipe bans.

The water and wastewater company said it would be ploughing the additional cash to improve its infrastructure during the current financial year after it pulled the plug on a hosepipe ban for Cumbria and the North West at the eleventh hour in August.

The company had been set to impose only its third hosepipe ban due to this Summer’s prolonged dry spell but called it off when the weather turned and amid criticisms that it was losing more than 175 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water a day through leaks.

In a trading update issued to the London Stock Exchange, it also revealed plans for a 10.5 per cent “real terms” reductions in bills between 2020 and 2025.

The company said: “Earlier this year, the UK experienced a prolonged period of extreme hot and dry

weather resulting in exceptional demand from customers.

“To safeguard continuity of supplies to customers and protect our water resources, we expect to invest an additional £80 million during the current financial year, comprising £40 million of

Operating costs and infrastructure renewals expenditure and £40 million of capital expenditure.

"These measures together with the cooler and wetter weather in August avoided the need for any water restrictions.”

On the moves to reduce prices it added: “On 3 September, we submitted our business plan to Ofwat setting out how we intend to meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders for AMP7 (the seventh Asset Management Period planned by the UK water industry).

“Our plan proposes a 10.5 per cent real terms price reduction between 2020 and 2025, whilst also delivering higher standards of service, increasing resilience, delivering innovation and investing for the long term.”

In the trading update – issued ahead of its interim results November 21 – the company said it expected revenues to be higher than the first half of the year and that it was trading in line with expectations for the six months ending September 30, 2018.

It also expects underlying operating profits for the first half of 2018-19 to be higher than the first half of 2017-18 and underlying net finance expense to be around £30m lower for the same comparable periods.

The company also highlighted its high levels of customer service and environmental performance.

“We are the top performing water and wastewater company against the Drinking Water Inspectorate's (DWI's) overall drinking water quality metric and third against the DWI's new Compliance Risk Index,” it said.

“Our wastewater business has retained 4-star status for the third consecutive year against the Environment Agency's annual assessment.

“Customer satisfaction has also continued to rise with the most recent UK Customer Service Index placing United Utilities top among all water and wastewater companies.”

United Utilities is currently delivering the £300m West Cumbria Water Supplies project, that will bring more reliable and sustainable water supplies into Allerdale and Copeland.

The scheme will link the area to Thirlmere Reservoir, and involves the construction of 100km of new pipeline, a new treatment plant at Williamsgate, two new pumping stations and two new underground service reservoirs.

The project began in spring last year and will be completed by 2022.