Water usage down, bills up, when water meter installed

Bristol Water charges are here:

http://www.bristolwater.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Your-charges-explained-2014.pdf

For unmeasured charges i.e. on Rateable Value(RV), for 2014/15 the Standing charges are £42 and combined water/sewerage charge is £2.67 per £1 RV.

If you were paying £35 a month(£420 pa) in 2014/15 that would mean the RV would be £142.

Far from being a high RV, £142 is an extremely low RV - many 3 bed semis will have a RV well above £200. £400 to £500 would not be unusual for a big detached house.

However the stupidity of the RV system means is not unusual for some large houses to have a low RV. Bear in mind that the last general revaluation of RV in England was in 1973(up to 1990 for houses built after that date) and many factors could have contributed to the low RV of your house.

So your assumption that your property would have a high RV is incorrect.

Turning to your current charges, the average consumption is 55 cubic metres per person per year - so 220 cubic metres pa for your family of 4.

From the charges in the link above, that consumption(220 cubic metres) would cost £828 pa - £69 a month if charged for 12 months. So as you rightly say, you are using well below average if paying £50 a month.

as long as the water company isn't just trying to make a quick buck ---- It smacks of opportunism to me.

Not so I am afraid. You do not understand the way water companies are financed.

All water companies have the revenue they can raise, and hence profit margins, tightly controlled by the Regulator. So it doesn't matter to the water companies if you are metered or not metered, pay £1 pa or £1,000pa, as the revenue they raise will be the same as they simply adjust their charges to raise the £xxx million revenue. They are in a win/win situation.

If you are in favour of meters as you claim in your post('as long as it is fair') consider this!

Was it fair that when unmetered you were paying hundreds of pounds less for a large 6 bed property in a posh area of Bristol(with large garden you could water) than a family of 4 in a metered 2 bed flat in St Pauls?

Don't think in any way I am a supporter of Water companies - privatisation of a monopoly like water was and is a disaster. They really cannot lose, as is reflected in their ever increasing share price and attraction to foreign investors.

Bristol Water and the other companies in the SW have some of the highest charges in the Country. An element of the charge is to keep the beaches clean in this area - a fee that you could argue should be paid by central Government, not the residents as the benefit is for tourists and residents alike.

The whole privatised water system is a sorry mess.

I manage to get one over at the moment as my house has rainwater harvesting for toilet flushing, washing machine use etc and I use more metered rainwater than I do mains water so my bills are a lot lower than they otherwise would be - although at a substantial investment cost.

As Cardew says though, The profit they can make is pre-determined, so expect year on year rises, more so as people use less water! Ironic isn't it, but the price will go up to cover the profits, so the less people use overall, the more they will pay per m3

I am with Bristol Water, £35. per month for a property in an affluent area, seems incredibly low. A couple of years ago I moved into a 2 bed 1929 bungalow in a mid class area of Bristol, this years water bill based on RV was over £600. I had a meter installed and will be saving approx. £300.