MSE News: Thames Water customers face new bill hike

Former_MSE_Helen

"Millions of households are facing an extra £29 on their bills, after Thames Water asked Ofwat if it can hike bills..."

Read the full story:

Thames Water customers face new bill hike




Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.

dawyldthing

I don't live in London, but I think they aught to be chasing the non-payers more rather than getting the rest of the people to pay it. This seems to happen more and more that people are squeezed further and further due to people not paying for things and stuff like this.

skylight

I'm not surprised they spend so much chasing non-payers. I've had them on my back for months over a debt totalling £19.51 that I do not even owe (and have proved it twice to them).


What is annoying, is that I bet they still pay out a shareholders dividend - which after a quick google they are! And it is at £231m in 2013 after being cut from £280m. So they raise £406m from us guys to cover a dividend and a super sewer.

kerri_gt

Penalise the people that do pay for those who don't - message 'you pay your bill, now pay for those who don't'

How about Thames Water spend some of that nice fat profit assisting those who can't pay, and following up those who don't pay instead?

Pincher

Debtor prison.
Lock them up in the Clink.

In Dune, they use a distillery to extract all the water from your body.

I think there is a minimum obligation, so they have to supply a little water so the household can drink and clean to stop disease spreading. Some kind of timer/meter so the householder gets five minutes of water per day, which they can collect in a bath tub if they don't have a loft tank.

I am under Thameswater. The bills used to be negligible, now it's about £700, no meter.

Kite2010

Can't have the shareholders do without a dividend, can't have the senior management do without their bonuses.

What do they think the bill payers are?

And the sad thing is they will probably get away with it, as unlike energy/telephone companies you can't switch water companies.

Cardew

Pincher wrote: »

I think there is a minimum obligation, so they have to supply a little water so the household can drink and clean to stop disease spreading. Some kind of timer/meter so the householder gets five minutes of water per day, which they can collect in a bath tub if they don't have a loft tank.

That is now changed unfortunately. A water company cannot disconnect or restrict the supply of domestic customers.

Cardew

Kite2010 wrote: »

Can't have the shareholders do without a dividend, can't have the senior management do without their bonuses.

What do they think the bill payers are?

And the sad thing is they will probably get away with it, as unlike energy/telephone companies you can't switch water companies.

As I understand the situation, when Ofwat fixed the allowed charges for all water companies for a five year period, it was recognised that there could be additional costs for Thames water that could not then be estimated; and Thames could go back to Ofwat when those costs were known. This is what Thames have done.

I think many of us think water privatisation was a big mistake.

However Maggie sold off the water industry(family silver!) to investers; many of the shares went to 'ordinary' customers and pension funds etc.

We live in a capitalist society, and people invest to get a dividend on their investment - the principle is no different to investing in any other company.

samueld_2

Why spend money on trying to recover debt when they can get it cost free from existing users. It is cost free.
Most companies suspend dividends when making investments, TW do not have to they just take from there existing users. Thats why we have a watchdog, which in this case is completely useless. It becomes increasingly apparent why it was nationalised in the first place, and should be again.