When writing a business continuity plan in the UK, utility outages should be addressed explicitly. Loss of water often forces site closure sooner than expected because toilets, handwashing and welfare facilities become unusable, creating compliance and safety risks. Effective plans define water failure scenarios, set clear closure thresholds, and document first-hour response actions for facilities and estates teams.
When writing a business continuity plan, many UK organisations focus on IT systems, cyber risk, data recovery and power supply. Those are important. However, utility outages – particularly loss of water – can force closure faster than many plans anticipate, because they affect whether people can legally and safely remain on site.
For facilities and estates teams, continuity planning is often less about policies and more about operational reality: washrooms become unusable, handwashing and hygiene facilities are compromised, and welfare provision falls below acceptable standards. At that point, businesses frequently shut down long before other continuity measures are tested.
This guide explains how to write a business continuity plan that properly accounts for utility outages, with practical steps, a clear structure, and an emphasis on what actually triggers shutdowns in offices, warehouses, industrial sites, logistics facilities, retail parks and multi-site estates across the UK.
On this page
- What a business continuity plan should achieve
- Why utility outages must be treated as a priority risk
- What business continuity plans often overlook
- The real shutdown sequence during a water outage
- Step-by-step: how to write the utility outage section of your BCP
- Quick checklist: utility outage readiness
- Frequently asked questions
- Next steps
What a business continuity plan should achieve
A business continuity plan (BCP) is there to help you:
- Protect staff and visitors
- Maintain legal and workplace welfare obligations
- Keep critical operations running where possible
- Reduce downtime and financial loss
- Protect reputation and customer confidence
- Provide clear actions during stressful incidents
A good BCP is not a document that exists for audit purposes. It is a decision and action framework that helps your organisation respond quickly, with clear roles and pre-approved steps.
Why utility outages must be treated as a priority risk
Many continuity plans group “loss of utilities” into a single line item. That creates a blind spot.
Utility outages are high-impact because they:
- Happen with little notice (planned or unplanned)
- Affect multiple systems at once (water, drainage, hygiene, heating, production)
- Trigger health, welfare, and compliance constraints quickly
- Create immediate operational and HR decisions (“send people home”)
Water is often underestimated. For many sites, loss of water is not just inconvenience – it directly affects:
- Washrooms and sanitary facilities
- Handwashing and hygiene
- Food production and washdown (where relevant)
- Cleaning and infection control
- Cooling systems and plant operations (site dependent)
Water outages are one of the most common examples of how utility failures force closure through welfare and compliance constraints. We’ve set out a practical example of how to address this in a continuity document in our guide on how to plan for water outages in a business continuity plan.
What business continuity plans often overlook
Most continuity plans are written with a “systems-first” mindset. In reality, closures are usually “people-first”.
A plan might say “water outage”, but fail to specify:
- How long washrooms remain usable without water
- What happens to handwashing and hygiene requirements
- Who has authority to close a site
- What temporary mitigation is acceptable
- Which suppliers can respond within hours, not days
This is where many sites lose time – not because they lacked a plan, but because the plan didn’t include the practical steps required to keep premises open and compliant.
The real shutdown sequence during a water outage
Utility failures rarely stay confined to one issue. In most cases, the practical sequence is:
- Water supply is lost or pressure becomes unreliable
- Washrooms and sanitary facilities stop functioning as normal
- Handwashing and hygiene becomes a welfare and compliance concern
- Staff confidence drops and informal decisions begin (“we can’t stay open”)
- A manager closes the site to protect safety, compliance and reputation
For some sectors – particularly food and drink manufacturing – water loss can halt production immediately. For many other workplaces, washrooms and welfare facilities become the point where closure becomes unavoidable.
That is why welfare provision should be treated as a critical dependency in any continuity plan that mentions water or utilities.
Step-by-step: how to write the utility outage section of your BCP
1) Define your utility outage scenarios
At minimum, treat these as separate scenarios:
- Loss of water supply
- Loss of power
- Drainage or sewer failure (including internal blockages)
- Loss of heating (seasonal)
- Loss of communications (secondary, but often linked)
For each scenario, define:
- What “failure” looks like (full outage, reduced pressure, intermittent supply)
- The likely duration ranges (minutes, hours, days)
- Which sites are affected (single site vs multi-site pattern)
2) Identify your critical dependencies
For each site, list what fails first, and what that causes.
For water outages, your dependency list often includes:
- Washrooms and sanitary facilities
- Handwashing stations
- Cleaning regimes
- Catering and food hygiene (site dependent)
- Production processes (sector dependent)
- Welfare areas, showers, drying rooms (site dependent)
The goal is to translate “loss of water” into practical consequences for your exact premises.
3) Set closure thresholds and decision authority
You need clear triggers for escalation and closure, such as:
- Washrooms no longer usable or serviceable
- Handwashing is not available or not acceptable
- Hygiene or welfare provision falls below internal standards
- The issue is expected to last beyond a defined timeframe
- Customer or visitor safety and reputation risk becomes unacceptable
Also define:
- Who can close the site (job role, not name)
- Who must be informed (Operations, HR, Security, Clients, Landlord, FM provider)
- How the decision is recorded
4) Define immediate mitigation actions (first hour)
Your BCP should include a “first hour” playbook. For water-related incidents, this often includes:
- Confirming whether the issue is internal (building) or external (network)
- Contacting the landlord, managing agent, or water supplier
- Identifying affected areas and isolating risks
- Communicating to staff clearly (what’s known, what’s being done)
- Activating temporary welfare measures if the outage is likely to continue
Include practical details such as:
- Where keys and access points are held
- Who can approve emergency spend
- How emergency suppliers are contacted
- What information suppliers will need (site access, location, constraints)
5) Define mitigation options (to keep sites open where possible)
Temporary welfare provision
In many situations, temporary welfare provision allows operations to continue while the water issue is resolved, particularly for:
- Warehouses and logistics
- Retail parks and customer-facing sites
- Offices and multi-tenant buildings
- Construction and infrastructure sites
Your plan should specify:
- Minimum quantities and response expectations
- Delivery constraints (access, hours, permits)
- Servicing expectations if the outage persists
Temporary handwashing and hygiene
Where staff remain on site, hygiene is often the deciding factor. Your plan should consider:
- Temporary wash stations where appropriate
- Cleaning escalation
- Safe use guidance for staff
Alternative water arrangements (overview)
In some sectors, you may require alternative water arrangements to maintain operations. If this is relevant to your business, your plan should note:
- Who assesses required volumes
- Whether temporary storage exists on site
- What processes require potable vs non-potable water
- Who is responsible for commissioning supply
You do not need to specify the entire solution in the BCP – but you do need to acknowledge the requirement and have a clear escalation path.
6) Build supplier readiness into the plan
A continuity plan fails if supplier details aren’t usable in the moment. For each scenario, list:
- Primary supplier contacts
- Backup supplier contacts
- Expected response windows
- Information required to deploy support quickly
Include:
- Site address and access notes
- Out-of-hours access arrangements
- Constraints (height, weight limits, security requirements)
- Named internal approvers for emergency spend
7) Test, review and improve
Utility incidents are ideal for practical tests because they create fast decision pressure. Run at least one table-top exercise per year that asks:
- Water fails at 3pm – what happens by 4pm?
- Washrooms are unusable – who decides closure?
- How do we maintain welfare provision if the issue lasts 48 hours?
- Who communicates to staff? Who communicates to customers?
Update the plan based on real constraints discovered during the exercise.
Quick checklist: utility outage readiness
- We have defined what “utility outage” means for each site
- We have mapped what fails first (washrooms, hygiene, welfare, production)
- We have clear closure thresholds and decision authority
- We have a first-hour response playbook
- We have mitigation options documented (temporary welfare provision)
- We have supplier readiness with usable contact details
- We run an annual exercise and update the plan
Frequently asked questions
How long can a business stay open without water?
It depends on sector and site setup. For many workplaces, the deciding factor is whether washrooms and handwashing facilities remain available and acceptable. If welfare provision cannot be maintained, closure often becomes necessary quickly.
Should utilities be a separate section in a business continuity plan?
Yes. Utility failures are often grouped too broadly. Water, drainage and power should be addressed separately with practical dependencies and response actions.
Who should own the utility outage section of a continuity plan?
Typically facilities, estates, operations, or an outsourced facilities management provider – supported by HR and senior management for closure decisions and staff communications.
Next steps
If you already have a business continuity plan, the fastest improvement is usually to revisit the “loss of utilities” section and expand it into a practical utility outage playbook – particularly around water, hygiene and welfare provision.
If you don’t have a plan yet, use the steps above as the basis for a working document, then test it with a table-top exercise to reveal the practical gaps before a real incident does.
