Sewage UP, boss’s bonuses UP, and shock, horror – YOUR water bills UP too

Shit is hitting the fan – or rather, a UK river near you – as water companies gear up to rip off customers even more than they already are. Yes, water bills are going up even more.

Naturally, it comes the day after we learned water company bosses bagged eye-watering bonuses totalling over £9.1m:

• In July, Labour rubber stamped the 21-44% rise in Water Bills provided Water bosses carried out reform

• Today’s news water bills will now rise even higher than the agreed 21-44% this parliament

• This follows yesterday’s news that water bosses got £9m in bonuses last year

— Eóin Clarke (@DrEoinOCleirigh) October 22, 2024

As the BBC reported:

Water bills will go up by more than initially expected over the next five years to fund higher costs and more investment, the BBC understands.

The regulator, Ofwat, is in the process of deciding how much customer bills will be allowed to rise.

In July, Ofwat provisionally agreed to allow bills to rise by an average of £19 per year between 2025 and 2030 – totalling a £94 increase, or a 21% rise, over that period.

It is unclear by how much more bills will rise instead, but the watchdog will make its final decision at the end of the year.

For one, more than who expected? The useless public broadcaster made out like this wasn’t entirely predictable. However, news flash for the BBC – the writing has been on the wall for a long time that Labour and its toothless regulator Ofwat would roll over to the big water bosses.

Labour may have rubber stamped the 21-44% rise on bills, but clearly they needed something a little more solid that a rubber stamp:

“Water bills set to rise more than expected.”

Greed, financial engineering and regulatory incompetence has created the chaotic shambles that is the water industry. Yet they now contemptuously demand it is us the customers who must pay (again) for a mess they created.

No is the…

— Feargal Sharkey (@Feargal_Sharkey) October 22, 2024

Water bills to rise more than expected.

Average of 21% above inflation for 2025 to 2030; Southern Water 44%; Thames Water wants 59%.

OFWAT guarantees real returns to companies. They raise capital from customers, shareholders get returns, people abused.https://t.co/QbSzg3W3ka

— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) October 22, 2024

Water bills up: we saw it coming

The Canary has been warning about this all along.

At Labour’s conference in September, they were already planning to ramp up water bills. Meanwhile, we wrote how the same companies siphoning off eye-watering dividends for their shareholders and filling, will be getting the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) treatment, after years of spewing untreated sewage into UK waterways.

The Canary already detailed how the Labour government and Ofwat planned to hike bills by £19 a year from 2025. Unsurprisingly, it now turns out it’ll be more than this. No one could have seen that coming:

It doesn’t have to be this way. The media simply refuse to give any decent or fair air time to the many people arguing for renationalisation of the water industry. The bulk of the pubic support the idea but it gets no air time. Disgusting.#BrokenMedia https://t.co/ac2agvoPrc

— Devutopia (@D_Raval) October 22, 2024

A national scandal

Meanwhile, water companies bosses have taken £9.1m in bonuses, even amidst a national sewage scandal.

According to a Lib Dem analysis of company house records, it wasn’t just bonus pay that increased. Pension contributions did too.

When they factored in base pay and pension contributions, the total amount paid to executives was more than £20m:

Of course the UK water companies want to increase charges exponentially, otherwise how will they continue to afford to pay increased dividends to shareholders & abhorrently exorbitant salaries to their executives?

Like c’mon, get real. This is Brexit Britain where anything goes.

— mainstream (@Nillo82948721) October 22, 2024

If water companies can’t attract investment without absurd price increases, they’re obviously worthless due to mismanagement and shareholders taking too much out and investing too little.
Hence, they could (and should) be nationalised without compensation.#BBCBreakfast #R4Today

— Adrian Faiers (@AdrianFaiers) October 22, 2024

Water bills up: public ownership

Unsurprisingly, this all comes as the number of sewage discharges into British waterways skyrocketed. According to the Environment Agency, water companies discharged double the amount of untreated sewage in 2023. There was a staggering 3.6m hours of discharges, compared to 1.8m the year before. Shockingly, this totalled 464,000 individual spills:

We need to bring water into public ownership immediately. https://t.co/nvOUkSqbS4

— Peace & Justice Project (@corbyn_project) October 22, 2024

It’s 💰 for them, 💩 for us.

£billions are leaking out to shareholders while sewage is gushing into our rivers.

The solution? Plug the leak: bring water into public ownership.https://t.co/DedXgF7EtM

— We Own It (@We_OwnIt) October 22, 2024

It is past time for nationalisation. The water companies have not built, they have taken. The water companies have not protected, they have polluted. The water companies are the problem, not the solution. https://t.co/xkYhcbFBcF

— Dr Martin Opposes Gov’t Corruption (@MartinRemains) October 22, 2024

Clearly, Labour don’t care about the regular folk who are already struggling to pay their utility bills.

Or maybe water bills going up is part of a much bigger plan.

You can survive around three days without water. Perhaps this is their way of killing off a few million people on NHS waiting lists.

Feature image via