It's a hat trick for Yorkshire Water - Company is named Utility Company of the Year for third successive year

Yorkshire Water has scored a hat trick by taking the 'Utility Company of the Year' title for the third year running, beating off competition from RW N Power and Scottish Water. The company accepted the award at the prestigious Utility Industry Achievement Awards last night, which were held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

When Yorkshire Water won for the second consecutive year last December, it was an unprecedented achievement - beating companies such as Scottish Water and Gaz de France to secure the title. This year, the company has achieved some significant milestones in key areas such as customer service and leakage but the hat trick win was particularly outstanding as it was set against the backdrop of a very busy and challenging year for the water industry as a whole.

In its entry Yorkshire Water described 2005/2006 as a tipping point in its vision to move away from a traditional utility focused on reactive customer service, failure recovery and regulatory compliance to one of 100% customer service and zero failures affecting customers.

The judges said: "To pick up the title for a third year running, was a remarkable achievement. We were impressed with Yorkshire Water's upbeat entry, in which the company's obvious pride and ambition showed through."

Kevin Whiteman, managing director of Yorkshire Water, says: "We’ve taken yet another big step on the road to becoming clearly the best water company in the UK. I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved, but there is always more to do and we must now continue to build on this success.

"This achievement is thanks to everyone right across the business. Their continued hard work and dedication has contributed to the improvements and innovations we have seen over recent years, helping us win this award again."

The success proves that the company is not complacent and is continually raising the bar all the time to improve year on year. Key achievements which contributed to Yorkshire Water's win have included:

• Joint top of Ofwat's overall performance table
• Meeting the leakage targets set by regulator Ofwat for the ninth year running
• Maintaining its position as the UK's most efficient water company Customer satisfaction is currently at 93%