Water Bills Going Up

[fender62]

i cannot fathom out why, the companies have been paying themselves millions+ and dupming raw sewage regularly, is it like a thumb in the dyke? legal greed..

https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/ofwat-approves-104bn-upgrade-to-accelerate-delivery-of-cleaner-rivers-and-seas-and-secure-long-term-drinking-water-supplies-for-customers/

[newmodarmy]

£104 billion is a huge amount of money for them to find to do this work which has been put off for decades. Some have been making profits on their operations but these amount to little more than a billion a year on average (Since 2018-19, water firms have made £4.2bn in pre-tax profits.) They are reasonable profits but nowhere enough to fund such a huge investment. It's more than annoying though to see the bumper pay packets and bonuses paid out to the senior managers.

[New Judge]

"i cannot fathom out why, the companies have been paying themselves millions.."

Well let's have a think:

Here we have a group of companies providing an absolutely essential service which everybody must have. They have an income (from their domestic customers) of somehing like £12bn a year and a shedload more from their commercial cluents. But none of these customers have any choice but to pay these companies for that service. They can go nowhere else.

They have a huge backlog of repairs (in the Thames Water area it is estimated that a third of all water pumped into the system is lost through leaks). They have an ageing infrastructure which needs upgrade. ]

Despite all this,  the so-called  regulator does not insist that they address these problems before paying spectacular dividends from the charges they levy on their captive customers.

"+ and dupming raw sewage regularly,"

See above.

[david small]

The system sucks.

[New Judge]

"They are reasonable profits but nowhere enough to fund such a huge investment."

Then, like every other business faced wih such a problem, they should go to the markets for funds.

They should have no problem with this because they have a guaranteed income, their cusomers must have their product and can go nowhere else.

[newmodarmy]

//They should have no problem with this because they have a guaranteed income, their cusomers must have their product and can go nowhere else.//

The guaranteed income is limited though because prices are capped by the regulator. A company in another sector would either put up its prices (limited scope here), expand its markets (hard to do here) and/or slash costs. As they can't do this profits are severely constrained, so they can't offer shareholders an attractive return. So they won't raise enough from shareholders. 

This should have been foreseen when they were sold off. But even under public ownership someone (the tax payer) would need to find these many billions to improve the infrastructure

[fiveleaves]

The water industry should be under public ownership. They pay their executives absurdly high salaries and are only interested in paying dividends to their shareholders rather than investing in the industry.

Meanwhile the ordinary public are being continually ripped off How long are people expected to put up with this state of affairs? 

Nationalise the water and the energy sector and lets have some cheaper bills

 

[johnny.5]

thames water got fined over £18 million 

where will that money come from ?

where will that money go ?

if they are declared bankrupt then what will happen to the water company ?

[Canary42]

The perils of privatisation

Don't say I haven't warned you 😊

[fender62]

New Judge, thanks.. now im thinking energy prices going up and err council tax, you can only squeeze the woring public so much, to the point thye have nothing to live on anymore..less your wealthy, i wonder if the torys won, would they be doing the same thing, seem a very cowardly lot all of them.

[Peter Pedant]

"They are reasonable profits but nowhere enough to fund such a huge investment."

thames water borrowed money to pay a dividend. it rather put me off investingin the stock market when I found that out

[jourdain2]

As Canary says.... during the 'Tell Sid..' era I bought shares in Gas & electricity --- but I would not buy water shares, because there is no alternative to water.  It should be a national service.

[youngmafbog]

They will need to rise a lot more.

A whole infrastructure needs updating and expanding to cope with the millions of new customers arriving on our shores.

But first it needs taking out of private hands.