Meantime our water suppliers are allowed to raise their prices to cover goodness knows what (improve their services?).
As my bill next year could rise by 19% in one of the lower brackets (Northumbrian Water) I do feel hard done by.
Not that my children will remember that Northumbrian Water were supplying West Yorkshire by rolling tankers because all the Victorian Water pipes supplying private homes had failed in 1976 and all the reservoirs were empty. Remember that drounght?
In 1976, although they may have been called by various names, most water supply companies were publicly owned. Now they are private and as well as costs to supply water and take away sewage, they now have to make a profit for their shareholders. Some have been asset stripped by their owners over the years.
Our water supplier has always been privately owned, and we have never had a problem to date, although I understand it has had a change of owner recently, so hope they behave. We were fortunate in that we didn't have problems in 1976 as the aquifer used keeps running. In fact they were exporting water to Gibralter using new unused tankers. As there has been a lot of development in our area lately, they have finally got permission from Ofwat to build a new reservoir, but not quite sure when it will be ready. Sewage is dealt with by a different company.
We have just had a great reduction in both our water and sewage bills by getting a water meter fitted. The sewage bill in particular has dropped dramatically.
Yep a water meter is the way to go if it can be done.
You are lucky Mistress Rose in not being with one of the major water companies.
Anyone with Thames Water has a very disorganised and financially unstable supplier. Considering that water is one of life's few essentials I'm not sure how the company has been allowed to get into this financial disaster area. Any other company would have been allowed to go to the wall as with a large number of gas & eelectricity companies back in the not so recent past.
Unfortunately when Ofwat was set up it was only given limited powers to prevent the privatised water companies getting in the mess Thames Water is in. Of course it should have been realised that various owners would take as much out of them as possible and put as little in, but politics seems to be blind to those sorts of consequences.
It isn't as easy as you would think unless the source is a chalk aquifer as we are on. Water from rivers and boreholes can be polluted with all sorts of things, and those have to be removed. There are very strict standards for drinking water in the UK; far stricter than for bottled water.
View Latest Posts