MP: WATER BILLS RISE ‘OUTRAGEOUS’

CAMPAIGNERS have criticised a rise in water bills which they say is unlikely to solve the problem of sewage being discharged into the River Thames in Henley.

Industry regulator Ofwat has approved an increase of 35 per cent over the next five years, which it says will reduce spills and pay for supply upgrades.

Customers of Thames Water can expect their average bills to rise by about £31 a year, taking annual bills from £436 to £588 by 2030.

The increase, which comes into force from April, is higher than the 23 per cent hike in bills the regulator had proposed in July but is lower than the 59 per cent that had been requested by the firm.

Ofwat has said the change would raise about £104 billion to “accelerate” the delivery of cleaner rivers and seas and secure “long-term drinking water supplies for customers”.

Thames Water is struggling under a £15bn pile of debt and campaigners do not believe higher bills will deliver the change that is necessary.

Laura Reineke, a clean water campaigner and member of open water swimming group the Henley Mermaids, said: “It has to stop. Nothing will change if nothing changes. The one single thing that every living thing needs on this Earth should not be privately owned. The money will go into the sinking pit that Thames Water has built up since privatisation. It is a failed experiment and it needs to stop now. Why should we bail them out when we have already paid for them to do the job that they haven’t done?

“Why should I pay for something that’s not being done? We just want to see the river clean, healthy and fit for wildlife and humans, which is what it should be. Every other country in Europe has lovely clean rivers that you can swim in that have bathing water and are full of wildlife and we have a turbid brown river.”

Ms Reineke also hit out at company bosses receiving bonuses worth £770,000, adding: “We do not need to be paying big bosses’ big money to do a job that they’re not doing properly. We pay them to dispose of our sewage environmentally correctly and we pay for them to have clean water coming out of our taps, neither of which they are capable of, and they have proved that over and over again.”

Between January 2020 and November 2023, Thames Water pumped at least 72 billion litres of sewage into the river. This figure does not include illegal discharges, known as dry spills, when sewage is released when there is no rain.

On July 3, semi-finals day at Henley Royal Regatta, sewage was discharged into the Thames at Fawley Meadows, near the Henley sewage treatment works, for two hours.

Henley Town Council has passed a motion of no confidence in Thames Water and Oxfordshire County Council and South Oxfordshire District Council have also followed suit.

Jo Robb, the district council’s river champion and a Green Party member, said the only way to fix the problem is to renationalise the water system.

Councillor Robb said: “I think customers and bill payers around the country will quite rightly be angry because what Ofwat has effectively demanded of us is that we pay a second time for a service we should have already received.

“This lays bare the failure of and the total scam that is privatisation. It also exposes the failure of the regulators to stand up against big business money and the water industry.

“I don’t feel assured by the bill rise at all. Ofwat will continue to side with the water industry over the interests of people and customers, so I’m not confident that this money will deliver investment.

“We have already been burned by the water industry once, bearing in mind we don’t have any choice of water company.”

Cllr Robb said the Water (Special Measures) Bill, set out by the Government to “put failing water companies under tough special measures”, fails to deal with the root cause of the problem.

She said: “This bill rise is a bill-payer bailout of Thames Water. The government said it will not be bailing out the privatised water industry but that’s exactly what’s happening. I think it’s high time the government stepped in to protect them and put the company into special administration because the longer this drags out, the more expensive and damaging it will be.”

Henley MP Freddie van Mierlo said: “It’s outrageous that Thames Water is trying to pay its debts off the back of ordinary bill payers. It shouldn’t be allowed to service the debt which went to its shareholders on the basis of just charging ordinary people more money.

“Fundamentally, I think the system is broken and we need a new regulator. Ofwat isn’t strong enough and the special measures bill doesn’t give them the strength and powers we would like to see.

“It has admitted that it should never have allowed Thames Water to build up such a massive debt pile and they can’t really be trusted to regulate the industry properly.”

David Black, the chief executive of Ofwat, described the bill increases as “game-changing”.

He said: “The Thames bill increase is in line with the sector average. Investment is increasing fourfold, for a bill increase of £31 per year, every year over the next five years. That’s a game-changing level of investment, that’s what we need to see to address the issues that the public is so rightly angry about.

“Nonetheless, we certainly understand that this is going to be very difficult news for customers, which is why we’re also pleased that these companies will double all support available for customers. We will continue to take enforcement action against companies where they fall short and hope the environmental regulators do the same.”

Last month, campaigners from Henley joined thousands of other activists to call for tougher action on keeping the UK’s rivers and seas clean. They were part of a coalition of more than 130 nature, environmental and water-sport organisations who marched in London.

In October, Thames Water, which serves 16 million customers across London and the Thames Valley, received a cash lifeline from its creditors, securing a loan of £3bn, following fears it would run out of funding before Christmas. The new debt package means it will be funded until October 2025.

Thames Water has said that it has “clear and deliverable plans” to increase treatment capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges including at its Henley treatment works.