The water and sewerage companies in England and Wales were required to provide Ofwat with a statement of principles regarding common carriage in March 2000. In the future, these statements could form the basis of a common access code across England and Wales, and therefore enable any trading of capacity to be standardised.

As the market in infrastructure capacity devlops, waterexchange aims to facilitate greater competition by creating a marketplace that actively informs, trades and exchanges this capacity.