Surface water charges

lionel186

Hi all. We are charged for the collection and treatment of surface water however, I am in the process of claiming a reduction on my water rates on the basis that my roof drainage water goes to soakaways and that the small amount of surface water that does actually drain to the street storm drain discharges into a brook at the bottom of the road. This stream ultimately discharges into a local fishing pool which was once used for topping up the local canal (now disused).
Some time ago (possibly 3-4 years) the residents of a village somewhere in this country challenged their water company on this very issue and ultimately won their case after proving that their surface water finished up in the local brook and was not collected/treated.
Does anyone remember this and where it actually was as I intend to use this as a precedent for my argument. Any help would be most appreciated.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

I have not heard of the case you mention, however I believe that the precedent has now been set where if a small proportion of your surface water does not go into a soakaway(even if that small proportion goes into a sewer) then you can get pro-rata relief from the SWD charges.

I suggest you contact the Consumer Council for Water for advice on your issue.

http://www.ccwater.org.uk/

lionel186

Thanks for that Cardew. I e-mailed CCW straightaway and good as gold they replied tonight but cannot help. Ofwat are a useful as a broken teapot. Oh well onwards and upwards.

Ephemera

Contact your service provider for sewerage...they will be able to advise what proportion of your rainwater going into soakaways will qualify you for a rebate.

As for proving it, it's quite simple...Get yourself to your local plumbers' merchant and pick up a tub of drain tracing powder. TAKE CARE it WILL stain if you get it on your clothes! Put some drain trace powder into a bucket of water and pour it down your gutter or into the drain at the bottom of the downpipe (if your downpipe goes into an open drain) and ask a friend to wait where the storm drain discharges into the brook to prove that it ends up there. Make sure you have a strong colour as it will be diluted!

Hope this helps!

Eph x

Fire_Fox

I have just noticed that £9 of my £20ish quarterly bill is for surface water drainage. I live in a block of fifteen flats, I think we have a flat roof but not sure as we can't access it. How do they work out how much to charge for surface water? It seems a very high percentage of my total bill.

Edited to add: it is a converted 1960s city centre office block in the Yorkshire Water region.

DebDub

I don't know if you watched Watchdog the other night, but the issue of surface run-off was brought up. We are with Southern Water and on their site, they have a "rebate form" which is very easy to find from their home page. Your water cos' website may have the same?

We built our own home 3yrs ago; part of planning regs were to have a soakaway, so when reinstating the water company once we had completed the build, it is my belief that they should have been aware that we would have had a soakaway. We are currently therefore appealing for a full 3yr rebate. This is our water cos' reply to my initial appeal:-

"With regard to the backdating of the rebate, the change in the way we set out the sewerage standing charge arose following new guidance from the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and discussions with the industry regulator OFWAT, which is incorporated in our Charges Scheme and has been formally approved by OFWAT. In accordance with their requirements, rebates are effective from the beginning of the charging year 1 April 2009 in which the customer indicates their wish to claim"

In other words, customers can apparently only reclaim for the last year, not previous to that!! And this it would seem, has been approved by their ombudsman?!

I feel Watchdog may have some more work coming their way on this one!!!

Good luck

deanos

DebDub wrote: »

In other words, customers can apparently only reclaim for the last year, not previous to that!! And this it would seem, has been approved by their ombudsman?!

Yes thats correct, you cant blame the water companys to sticking to it either, if you had a business i bet you would do the same i know i would, why give money away when you dont have to !

DebDub

deanos wrote: »

Yes thats correct, you cant blame the water companys to sticking to it either, if you had a business i bet you would do the same i know i would, why give money away when you dont have to !

Actually, I do have my own business, and now I would NOT do the same! I assure you, you would not either if you did have your own business. I know not of any smaller companies that would get away with it quite frankly! And how can you support the water companies for it?!

My point in our case is that the water company were aware we had a new build AND that we have a soakaway, yet still charged. This is surely obtaining money by deception?! I accept that they do not necessarily know which properties DO have soakaways and which don't, but in our case, they DID know.

Cardew

DebDub wrote: »

Actually, I do have my own business, and now I would NOT do the same! I assure you, you would not either if you did have your own business. I know not of any smaller companies that would get away with it quite frankly! And how can you support the water companies for it?!

My point in our case is that the water company were aware we had a new build AND that we have a soakaway, yet still charged. This is surely obtaining money by deception?! I accept that they do not necessarily know which properties DO have soakaways and which don't, but in our case, they DID know.

Firstly I have been on record on this forum for some years stating that the whole method of charging for Surface water Drainage(SWD) is a disgrace.

Even accepting that there is any justification for this charge(which I don't), we have the situation where a property discharging huge amounts of water into a sewer can pay a fraction of the charge of a property with a small amount of water reaching the sewer.

Even worse is that there have been cases where it has been established that a property has a soakaway and is not liable for SWD. A new occupant finds themselves paying SWD charges as the account has reverted to 'charge SWD'!!!!!!

That said, a couple of points.

Firstly you said earlier "is my belief that they should have been aware that we would have had a soakaway." You have now strengthen that statement to "the water company were aware - we had a soakaway - but in our case, they DID know"

I very much doubt they were aware of the situation with your property, particularly as having a soakaway does not mean you are automatically entitled to relief from SWD! Plenty of new build properties are on land where water enters the sewers(mine being a good example). My main house obviously has soakaways, but I have outbuildings - a coachhouse converted to a dwelling.

So correctly I am charged SWD.

Also bear in mind that if water runs off your land onto a road, that water enters the sewer and the property is liable for SWD.

The 'default position' on 'The Computer' for all new accounts is to charge for SWD and an exemption has to be sought by the occupant.

If the 'default position' on new accounts was not to charge SWD, I wonder how many people would vounteer that they really should be charged SWD!!! You can hardly expect the companies to carry out a full survey of 20+ million homes in GB

The last point is backdating claims.

The SWD charge is not extra profit to the water companies. The water companies charges are regulated by ofwat. In essence ofwat agrees the expenses and profit for a company and they fix their charges to raise that revenue.

If, say, a company abolished charging for SWD, then they would raise the water/sewerage charges to compensate.

Ofwat came up with a reasonable(albeit defensive) explanation for their decision to agree with the companies that there should be no backdating of SWD charges.

This was that if, say, £x million was rebated by the companies, that £x million would simply be raised this year by increasing charges to all customers.

In other words, ofwat approved the pricing structure that allowed -indeed mandated- companies to charge for SWD, and the procedure that made it necessary for customers to opt out of paying SWD.

To repeat, I am not defending the principle of charging for SWD - it is a mess and should simply be abolished.

DebDub

Cardew wrote: »

Firstly I have been on record on this forum for some years stating that the whole method of charging for Surface water Drainage(SWD) is a disgrace.

Even accepting that there is any justification for this charge(which I don't), we have the situation where a property discharging huge amounts of water into a sewer can pay a fraction of the charge of a property with a small amount of water reaching the sewer.

Even worse is that there have been cases where it has been established that a property has a soakaway and is not liable for SWD. A new occupant finds themselves paying SWD charges as the account has reverted to 'charge SWD'!!!!!!

That said, a couple of points.

Firstly you said earlier "is my belief that they should have been aware that we would have had a soakaway." You have now strengthen that statement to "the water company were aware - we had a soakaway - but in our case, they DID know"

I very much doubt they were aware of the situation with your property, particularly as having a soakaway does not mean you are automatically entitled to relief from SWD! Plenty of new build properties are on land where water enters the sewers(mine being a good example). My main house obviously has soakaways, but I have outbuildings - a coachhouse converted to a dwelling.

So correctly I am charged SWD.

Also bear in mind that if water runs off your land onto a road, that water enters the sewer and the property is liable for SWD.

The 'default position' on 'The Computer' for all new accounts is to charge for SWD and an exemption has to be sought by the occupant.

If the 'default position' on new accounts was not to charge SWD, I wonder how many people would vounteer that they really should be charged SWD!!! You can hardly expect the companies to carry out a full survey of 20+ million homes in GB

The last point is backdating claims.

The SWD charge is not extra profit to the water companies. The water companies charges are regulated by ofwat. In essence ofwat agrees the expenses and profit for a company and they fix their charges to raise that revenue.

If, say, a company abolished charging for SWD, then they would raise the water/sewerage charges to compensate.

Ofwat came up with a reasonable(albeit defensive) explanation for their decision to agree with the companies that there should be no backdating of SWD charges.

This was that if, say, £x million was rebated by the companies, that £x million would simply be raised this year by increasing charges to all customers.

In other words, ofwat approved the pricing structure that allowed -indeed mandated- companies to charge for SWD, and the procedure that made it necessary for customers to opt out of paying SWD.

To repeat, I am not defending the principle of charging for SWD - it is a mess and should simply be abolished.

Yes, since my initail post, I have discovered that the water co are aware that we have a soakaway. We do realise that there is other criteria to meet to be entitled to a rebate; the rebate is funnily enough not an issue now with the water co, it is just the backdating.

When we completed building our property, upon reinstating the water cos services, they asked for information (including whether we now had a soakaway) in order that they may asses whether SWD should be charged. At that time for some reason, they deemed that it should, whereas now, they are saying it shouldn't. So our case is little different.

I guess perhaps the water cos should just make the option for rebate more transparent to their customers - this may prevent what they are doing from looking a little underhand? Or, as you suggest, abolish it completely? I agree, any other alternative would be impossible to impelment! Hopefully the Code for Sustainable Housing (coming in across the Country soon - nxt year I believe; already in place in our Local Authority) will bring some positive changes in this vein. It does have inclusion of requirements for rainwater harvester systems/ water butts etc... :rotfl:

Cardew

DebDub wrote: »

I guess perhaps the water cos should just make the option for rebate more transparent to their customers - this may prevent what they are doing from looking a little underhand? Or, as you suggest, abolish it completely? I agree, any other alternative would be impossible to impelment! Hopefully the Code for Sustainable Housing (coming in across the Country soon - nxt year I believe; already in place in our Local Authority) will bring some positive changes in this vein. It does have inclusion of requirements for rainwater harvester systems/ water butts etc... :rotfl:

Undoubtedly they should make the issue far more transparent, who reads the small print anyway!

The irony is that it really doesn't matter to the water companies if they charge for SWD or not. They are permitted to raise £x billion by the Regulator in water charges.

However they insist on a system where the SWD charges have absolutely no correlation to the amount of water entering the sewer.