WATER bills for millions of North-East customers are to rise by an average of £7 a year.

Northumbrian Water has announced its charges for the coming year which will see the company’s 2.7m North-East customers charged an average of £378, compared to £371 for last year.

The Durham-based company, which employs 3,000 staff, says it plans to invest around £180m on improvements to the supply in the 12 months starting April 2016.

Priority areas for investment will include work to protect homes from flooding from the water company’s 32,000km sewer network and improvements to drinking water quality delivered through its 16,000km of water pipes.

Chief executive Heidi Mottram said: “Our household customers will continue to pay on average about £1 per day for all their drinking water and sewerage services which represents great value for money.

“We will continue to invest in schemes to provide clean, clear tap water that tastes good and to protect homes from flooding.

“Our on-going investment programme not only delivers improvements for our customers, but is also helping to provide much needed work for local companies and secure jobs in the regions we supply.

“We have focussed on our efficiency to keep bills as low as possible but we are very aware that some people have difficulty managing the family budget and the affordability of our services is always a concern."

Yorkshire Water said it is not announcing its new prices until next Friday, when they will let customers know about any changes. The utilities firm said it could not say at this stage if its prices would be going up or down.

A spokesman said: “We’re not in a position to make an announcement yet. We’ve established a date to wrote to all out customers and let them know about the coming financial year.”