Anglian Water/Surface Water drainage

cemiddleton

We have lived in our newly built property since July 2003.
Our water is via Anglian Water.
I have discovered that we have a soakway system and therefore the charge for surface water drainage of £35 per year is not chargeable.
I have completed an application form but have been told by Anglian Water that the refund is only effected from the start of the current financial year ie April 2011 and this is company policy.
I have in fact been charged for the past 8 years for a service I have not used.
Can anyone offer advise as to how I obtain a refund for the past 8 years?
Assistance would greatly be appreciated!

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

This has been covered many many times - search in this section for surface water drainage.(SWD)

The policy adopted by Anglian is the same with all water companies and has been approved by the Regulator OFWAT.

If you go to the OFWAT website they explain why firms should not backdate before the start of the billing year - and the reasons are valid.

It is quite complicated but the 'simple' version is:

Water firm's revenue(and thus profit) is fixed by OFWAT. It doesn't matter a bit to a water company if their customers pay for SWD or not. If they get, say, £1million less revenue from SWD they raise an extra £1million in increased water and sewerage charges.

If you and a lot of other customers got refunded back for several years, that money would have to be raised by an extra charge for water on this year's charges, so people who were not even customers of Anglian until recently would be paying towards your refund for a period 8 years ago.

Unfortunately it was the Government(of Maggie) that stipulated in the Water Privatisation Act that the default position would be that everyone would pay SWD.

Please don't think I agree with the system - frankly the whole issue of SWD is a disgrace and there should be no such charge.

Anyway lots of people have tried to get their SWD charges backdated and failed; albeit there was one poster with Thames who said he did get it backdated a couple of years.

Good luck if you pursue the claim - let us know.