Surface Water Drainage - and Flats HELP!!!

Moneydownthedrain

Hi Fellow Apartment/Flat dwellers

Please see previous threads:

20/03/2011 Surface Water Charges & Flats

30/04/2011 Surface Water Drainage - and Flats

My complaint is with regard to Apartment/Flat households fitted with a water meter

The current United Utilities charge for "Rainwater removal" is £110.29 per year, per household

My complaint is as follows:

You can have a detached house divided into two semis where the roof and grounds have the same area per semi. One semi is a single occupancy, the other is divided into 5 apartments. The rainwater falls onto the roof/grounds and enters the drains equally on both sides

One semi pays £110.29 the other side pays £551.45 - How can this be fair to apartment households?

To me this has UK 1990 POLL TAX levels of fairness

I have taken my complaint to United Utilities, Consumer Council for Water, OFWAT and finally my local MP - they state that this is within the rules allowing water companies to charge for SWD per household and that they do not want to change it

I am appealing to constituents of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) parliamentary Committee to send an email/letter to their MP asking for this complaint to be presented to OFWAT so that they can explain why this is fair charging system for Apartment/Flat households fitted with a water meter

The MPs within the United Utilities supply area and who are members of the EFRA committee are:

Name	Party	Constituency
Cat Smith MP	Labour	Lancaster and Fleetwood
Ian Byrne MP	Labour	Liverpool, West Derby

If you think that you are charged for SWD in a similar manner to United Utilities, the other committee members are:

Name	Party	Constituency
Sir Robert Goodwill MP	Conservative	Scarborough and Whitby
Steven Bonnar MP	Scottish National Party	Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill
Rosie Duffield MP	Labour	Canterbury
Barry Gardiner MP	Labour	Brent North
Dr Neil Hudson MP	Conservative	Penrith and The Border
Robbie Moore MP	Conservative	Keighley
Mrs Sheryll Murray MP	Conservative	South East Cornwall
Julian Sturdy MP	Conservative	York Outer
Derek Thomas MP	Conservative	St Ives

I cannot do this myself as per strict Parliamentary Protocol, MPs can only make enquiries and act on behalf of their own constituents

I understand that the water companies will have to move the SWD charge to another cost element to maintain their profit margins

My suggestion would be to scrap the SWD charge and increase the wastewater usage unit rate to be fair to all households

Please could you reply in this thread confirming to which MP you have sent your email/letter

Hopefully we can contact as many members of the committee as possible so that we can finally get this complaint ruled upon and highlight this as an issue to the wider public

jbuchanangb

Until 2018 I lived in the Anglian Water region. Anglian Water did not identify a Surface Water charge. The annual standing charge was around £90. Then I moved to the United Utilities region. The annual Standing Charge for waste water disposal was about £7, but "Rainwater Removal" was about £105.In effect the standing charge for waste water was about £22 higher. However the annual standing charge for water supply was about £11 lower. Be careful what you ask for. United Utilities could simply combine the "Rainwater Removal" element into the waste water standing charge, as done by Anglian Water.

Moneydownthedrain

Thanks for your comment jbuchanangb

My thread was to highlight the fact that United Utilities are charging SWD per apartment when we share a roof and grounds. We are paying multiple times for SWD when the house next door with single occupancy will only pay one SWD

I have been informed that the SWD charge for the Severn Trent region for an apartment is only £23.79pa, this appears to be a lot fairer charging system 

MattMattMattUK

Moneydownthedrain said:

To me this has UK 1990 POLL TAX levels of fairness

The so called "Poll Tax" was very fair, however people did not like fair, they wanted other people to pay. 

cannugec5

Moneydownthedrain said:

Thanks for your comment jbuchanangb

My thread was to highlight the fact that United Utilities are charging SWD per apartment when we share a roof and grounds. We are paying multiple times for SWD when the house next door with single occupancy will only pay one SWD

I have been informed that the SWD charge for the Severn Trent region for an apartment is only £23.79pa, this appears to be a lot fairer charging system 

So do you think every property should be individually charged on the size its roof? Ground floor flats would be cheap. Attic apartments could perhaps cop the entire bill. That doesn’t sound very fair to me. 

A charge per household seems easier to calculate, implement and collect. 

Actually I live in Scotland where we don’t have separate water bills. It’s nationalised and paid for along with council taxes.