My water bill has increased by 27.5% over £120 a year! Is this reasonable?

StockportSaveree

I just got my 6 month water bill, I’m on a water meter and my usage has not changed.  But when it came, I noticed that they are increasing my direct debit up by £10 a month.
I phoned them to ask why (United Utilities, north west) and they said that all bills have been increased by 27.5% and will continue to increase by 3% each year after this.  They cited inflation, which is complete rubbish as that’s currently 3%.
This is a massive increase, moving my annual bill from £675 to around £860.
Has anyone else been experiencing 25%+ increases?  Whilst the shareholders are getting large payouts, company making large profits and their bosses given large salaries, are we customers being taken advantage of (as we can’t move water supplier)?

QrizB

StockportSaveree said:

Has anyone else been experiencing 25%+ increases?

There are several current threads discussing the recent price increases. for example:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6583569/huge-thames-water-bill-rises-2025-2026-50-for-some

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6588075/50-increase-in-thames-water-bill

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6588126/water-companies-fixed-charge

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6584799/is-anyone-in-actual-disbelief-at-the-new-water-charges-coming-in-2025

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6584497/water-bills-set-to-rise-for-majority

StockportSaveree said:

Whilst the shareholders are getting large payouts, company making large profits and their bosses given large salaries, are we customers being taken advantage of (as we can’t move water supplier)?

Shareholders are not getting large payouts, and the companies are mostly making operating losses (Thames Water in particular is essentially bankrupt). The UK has been paying too little for its water for too long. Ofwat has approved these price increases to allow some of the last 30 years of underinvestment to be corrected.

If you think water's expensive, take a look at what would be involved in purifying your own and then treating the waste.

Hoenir

StockportSaveree said:

This is a massive increase, moving my annual bill from £675 to around £860.

That's a fairly high usage. 

turney_2

Hi, I got my bill a couple of days ago, again, Severn Trent. Mine's gone from £351.05 for 2024/25, to £539.66 for 2025/26. By my reasoning, this is an increase of 53.7%! Breaking this down, this is made up of £235.24 for actual water, £137.60 for wastewater and surface water drainage, £17.48 for highway drainage, and unmetered fixed charges of £80.25 and £69.09 for waste water and surface water drainage fixed charge. This is not only scandalous, it is robbery!

400ixl

turney_2 said:

Hi, I got my bill a couple of days ago, again, Severn Trent. Mine's gone from £351.05 for 2024/25, to £539.66 for 2025/26. By my reasoning, this is an increase of 53.7%! Breaking this down, this is made up of £235.24 for actual water, £137.60 for wastewater and surface water drainage, £17.48 for highway drainage, and unmetered fixed charges of £80.25 and £69.09 for waste water and surface water drainage fixed charge. This is not only scandalous, it is robbery!

Any reason you are not on a meter? Unless there are more people than bedrooms it is typically cheaper to be on a meter. Even more so from this year.

turney_2

Our property is an old one (1840s) and has a large garden with loads of foliage that requires constant watering and so prefer to be unmetered for that reason.

GingerTim

turney_2 said:

Our property is an old one (1840s) and has a large garden with loads of foliage that requires constant watering and so prefer to be unmetered for that reason.

If that's the choice you are making about a meter then you are just going to have to accept the rateable charge.

dunstonh

Hoenir said:

StockportSaveree said:

This is a massive increase, moving my annual bill from £675 to around £860.

That's a fairly high usage. 

I wonder if it is both incoming and outgoing water?

We are on a septic tank, so we only have incoming and use around 226m3 a year, and we pay around £500 a year for water in.   That is on a meter, and we are an ex farm that has horses . That means heavy water use (water buckets, field sprays in summer, field troughs, boom sprayer fill ups on top of normal house use etc).    E&SW calls us periodically, saying we are using a lot compared to our neighbours and want to do a site visit.  Ignoring the point that we have no neighbours and we are not the average household, if we are paying around £500, then the OP is possibly referring to both water in and water out.

Hotrodder

I am with Southern Water who say on their website, that they are increasing customer bills by 46.7%. Our current monthly bill (which was set last October for a year) is £60. A 46.7% increase on £60 is £88.02 per month. I recently received an email from Southern Water informing me that their new figure is £96.90?

This is an increase of just over 60%. There are not any grey areas in simple maths. 

Obviously I contacted them. It took a while to get a response which went as follows...

"As we are unable to find a monthly payment plan of a lower amount, please contact our Affordability team on 0800 027 0800 to explore if there are any changes that can be made to the payment plan."  We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

How difficult is it to calculate a percentage increase?....some might wonder if their computer systems are the same as the Post office ones...is this widespread?

MattMattMattUK

Hotrodder said:

I am with Southern Water who say on their website, that they are increasing customer bills by 46.7%. Our current monthly bill (which was set last October for a year) is £60. A 46.7% increase on £60 is £88.02 per month. I recently received an email from Southern Water informing me that their new figure is £96.90?

This is an increase of just over 60%. There are not any grey areas in simple maths. 

Obviously I contacted them. It took a while to get a response which went as follows...

"As we are unable to find a monthly payment plan of a lower amount, please contact our Affordability team on 0800 027 0800 to explore if there are any changes that can be made to the payment plan."  We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

How difficult is it to calculate a percentage increase?....some might wonder if their computer systems are the same as the Post office ones...is this widespread?

The percentage is based on average usage, not just a flat rise for all. It varies according to usage, metered, unmetered or assessed. 

If your usage is costing you that much then either you are on rateable value, in which case going to metered will probably more than halve that cost, or if you are on a meter then you are using a huge amount of water. 

Alf_Alpha

I am with Severn Trent Water on an unmetered contract and I am currently disputing with them as follows-
My bill for 2025-26 is now £1151.46, compared to £834.59 last year. This is £316.87 more than last year which is an increase of 37.97%.
Severn Trent's own ‘Statement of Significant Changes' information gives the 'high' case increase for an unmeasured supply (not in Chester) as 22.3%. My immediate question is then why has my bill been increased by 37.97%?