The boss of United Utilities has said he expects there will be "no increase in average household water bills" in the North West in the 12 months to March 2023, despite the high levels of inflation.
Chief executive Steve Mogford added the company is "offering more financial support to customers in need than ever before" and it will be investing an extra £400m to improve the service its provides and to "accelerate the delivery of environmental outcomes".
United Utilities has also reported its results for the 12 months to March 31, 2022, in which its revenue increased from £1.808bn to £1.862bn.
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The company's pre-tax profits dipped from £551m to £439.9m over the same time.
Mr Mogford said: "We are very conscious of our responsibility to support customers at a time when households are seeing significant rises in the cost of living.
"Despite the high levels of inflation, we expect no increase in average household water bills in our region in the coming financial year and we are offering more financial support to customers in need than ever before.
"We are a leading supporter of the Consumer Council for Water's drive for a national social tariff and believe the right support should be provided to customers who struggle to pay their bill regardless of where they live in the country.
"We take our role in the North West very seriously, and firmly believe that responsibly sharing our successes is the right thing to do for all our stakeholders.
"Our improving performance together with an environment of higher inflation is yielding a greater level of outperformance, and so we will be investing an additional £400m to improve the service we provide to customers and to accelerate the delivery of environmental outcomes.
"We recently published our river revival plan which progressively reduces the impact our operations have on river health.
"Our four-point strategy details how we will work with others to transform the rivers and waterways across our region.
"The maturing of our Systems Thinking approach - which uses innovative technology to deliver a better service for customers - continues to create value through sustainable performance improvements.
"This has contributed to another strong outcome delivery incentive (ODI) reward for the year and underpins our confidence in increasing our total AMP7 ODI target by a third, to £200m.
"Financial performance has again been good, demonstrating resilience in a challenging environment and, together with the sustainable improvements in our performance, is delivering value for our stakeholders today as well as creating further value to be received in AMP8 and beyond."
