Moving a water meter

[FiniteSagacity]

Has anyone got experience of moving a water meter?

We have a water meter that has always been a background worry to me because it is sunken into the grass (within our property boundary). However, I think rather than getting it reset properly where it is, we’d ideally move it. If we moved it we’d need to get our driveway resurfaced but I’d prefer it to be 2 metres across the drive where it would not be stood on or driven over.

I did a bit of research and see the water company would do a survey first for less than £100 but because it’s already in a state, I want to have my ducks in a row to get it moved, not just be forced into a repair in the current position of a surveyor decides that’s necessary.

*if a surveyor decides immediate repairs are necessary.

Ideally we would move it just before getting work done on the drive.

As it’s sunken into the ground, it’s also a bit of a danger to post and delivery people, which I’ve thought about a lot more over the last 18 months.

Bumping this in case anyone reading today has any idea about moving a water meter…

A water meter is put in where the external stopcock for your property is. Obviously it has to be put in where the water supply is as well. To move it would mean excavating down to the water pipe- usually about 1m below ground level and then tracing back to where meter could be put, putting in new stop cock and meter, chlorinating the pipe. Backfilling. (As a side note trenches always sink a bit after so would probably be a dent appear in your new drive). Chances are that is still on your drive as water pipes tend to come in to the house perpendicular to the road.
I don't know if the water company would even do it, but the cost I am sure would be charged back to you and I'm guessing would cost a fair bit. As in thousands rather than hundreds.
If it's damaged then I'm guessing they would fix it where it is

We had ours moved out into the public footpath from our garden when we decided to have the front of our garden brick paved and the concrete casing would have stood above the bricks. We also took the opportunity to replace the service pipe which was leaking and made of lead.
We called the water company out before we started and they marked the pavement with blue spray paint to indicate where it would go. Then we dug the trench, laid the new service pipe, got it inspected- we only had to do this our side of the garden wall but needed to leave enough pipe for the water company to connect into the external stop tap. Our plumber changed over the supply pipe indoors to coincide with the water company re-siting and reconnecting outside the boundary. Luckily we live at the end of a public main so only 20 houses were affected for a couple of hours while the water company turned off the valve for the street.

(It also helped that I already knew what to do in theory as I was working for the company at the time. DH was clueless!).

Thanks @MrsMoastyToasty and @Lovetoridemybicycle really helpful.
We have no footpath so I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it moved off my property onto the road (our last 2 places it was in the footpath though). Good point about the sinking and I’ll bear that in mind. We’d be expecting ££££ spend when doing the drive anyway because it’s crumbling gravel already and there’s actually a raised channel across it, which I suspect could be where the pipe connects to our meter.
Very interested to see I could plan with my contractor and then just inform the water company and make sure I allow for pipe and plan reconnection etc.
It’s a next year job financially but I’m almost at the point of buying a traffic cone to stick over the dip in the front as a warning in the meantime!

Good luck, Bear in mind that connections have to be done by approved contractors to your water board- they will have a list- this is to help ensure that the supply is not contaminated. Thames Water have/had a team called Developer Services that would deal with this. I don't know if other water utilities have similar. Good luck