Severnt Trent Water Standing Charge ?

Oscarmax

Grumpy_chap said:

Oscarmax said:

Received our STW water bill today, previously they added about £8 for road drainage, today they have now added a standing charge for water and another for waste water adding approximately £25 to the bill ?

Does it say "road drainage" or "surface water drainage"?
Road drainage is usually the responsibility of the local Highways Authority (Local Council) and costs covered via Council Tax.
If it is surface water drainage from your own property (your roof / driveway / patio and such like), that is a different matter and may connect to the local foul sewer.  If none of your surface water drainage connects to foul sewer - and you will be encouraged to avoid this connection - there is a discount from the bill.  It is surface water drainage entering foul sewer networks that gets Feargal Sharkey on the telly.

£8.33 for highway drainage, we do not pay surface water drainage that is sent to holding tanks then to the river, we pay separately for that facility.

DE_612183

Oscarmax said:

DE_612183 said:

Oscarmax said:

I stand corrected I have checked 2023 bill it does include standing charge, STW have changed the format of latest bills.

What a rip off

How is changing the format of the bill a rip-off?

The standing charge

That doesn't make sense - you said the charge is on all bills, yet they have only re-formatted the bill - you are no worse off than if the bill hadn't been formatted so I can't see how that is a rip off?

The standing charge cover a fixed fee for the infrastructure that supports the network of pipes in and out of your property - as will other utilities like Gas and Electricity it's taken as being the fairest way to distribute these costs by the companies that supply the services.

shakey1047

My Severn Trent bill has three seperate standing charges for fresh water, waste water and water that runs down the street  the combined standing charges amount to some 62% of the total bill. It's ridiculous. 

DE_612183

shakey1047 said:

My Severn Trent bill has three seperate standing charges for fresh water, waste water and water that runs down the street  the combined standing charges amount to some 62% of the total bill. It's ridiculous. 

Not really - the actual water itself is the cheapest part of the operation - without the others there is no business.

Of course what water companies could do is build in all those infrastructure costs into the price of the water itself - but then those who use lots would pay a lot more, and would make budgeting and forecasting a lot harder.

This way fixed costs are paid via a fixed price, so the actual water costs are kept down as they are based on usage.

Hoenir

shakey1047 said:

My Severn Trent bill has three seperate standing charges for fresh water, waste water and water that runs down the street  the combined standing charges amount to some 62% of the total bill. It's ridiculous. 

Be more ridiculous if 62% was the cost of buying in the water itself.