Massive increase in water assessed charge?

Altior

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

mmmmikey

Altior said:

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

Hi, if you lived where I do you'd certainly see the difference in the form of a big reservoir, but you need to condition yourself to accept that reservoirs take a long time to build.

Altior

mmmmikey said:

Altior said:

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

Hi, if you lived where I do you'd certainly see the difference in the form of a big reservoir, but you need to condition yourself to accept that reservoirs take a long time to build.

Obviously not disputing new reservoirs take time to build. I don't need conditioning for accepting that. 

Where do you live ? 

mmmmikey

Altior said:

mmmmikey said:

Altior said:

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

Hi, if you lived where I do you'd certainly see the difference in the form of a big reservoir, but you need to condition yourself to accept that reservoirs take a long time to build.

Obviously not disputing new reservoirs take time to build. I don't need conditioning for accepting that. 

Where do you live ? 

My apologies for the clumsy choice of words, it wasn't my intention to insult your intelligence.  Thank you for your graceful response

What I really meant to say was something to the effect that it will take some time to see anything tangible as the kind of investment needed is long term. Some of it also involves replacing aging infrastructure that breaks occasionally and replacing leaky pipes which don't really involve doing anything tangible you can see. It's going to take a lot of investment in the maintenance / repairs needed just to stand still.

I live south of Lincoln and the reservoir is planned for land by Sleaford. 

We've had various outtages in the area over the last few months due to failures at local pumping stations so it's very clear that work is needed if you live around here. There is also major work on a new pipeline underway and when you see that happening it makes you realise just how much underground pipework there is and how much it's going to take to get it all up to scratch.

Altior

Carried out a brief search, here are a few snippets. The first one is obviously UK as a whole. I'd like to be able to identify total revenue increases over a similar time period. This one company appears to have increased their revenue by 11% in one year! 


There were an estimated 28.6 million households in the UK in 2024. This was a 7.0% increase from 26.7 million households in 2014. The increase was similar to UK population growth in the latest 10-year period with published data available (2013 to 2023), which is 6.4%

United Utilities expects annual revenues to grow by about 10 per cent this year, as the North West England water firm benefits from higher consumer bills.

Britain's biggest listed water company reported its turnover increased by 10.9 per cent to £1.1billion in the six months ending September thanks to higher household bills.

MattMattMattUK

Altior said:

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

It is not suddenly, it has been building for decades, we have not increased capture and storage capacity, we have not increased sewage processing capacity, we have been depleting groundwater and during that time we have allowed the population to increase significantly and the impact of climate change will only continue to get worse. That has lead to lower and lower reserves, increased dumping and systems when they exceed their design capacity are more prone to failure. 

Altior said:

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

It is not highly questionable, you would understand that if you took the time to read up on our water supply. You are correct in that it is not the same across all regions, the South East, South West, North West and Midlands are the regions most at risk, in Scotland there is very limited risk. Other regions are facing pressures, especially in sewerage processing capacity, but less so in terms of supply.

Altior said:

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

In the decades before privatisation the government was not willing to make the required investments, once privatisation happened those companies have done the bare minimum in some cases, or in many, less than the minimum (read the most recent Ofwat reports). Not just parts and equipment, but entire facilities and pipe networks are being operated well beyond their design life, that further increases the risk to supply.

Altior said:

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

Since privatisation forty years ago the population has increased 14%, but the capacity in the network has barely moved, instead the headroom has been used up and in many cases exceeded, hence the 464,000 sewage dumping incidents last year. Water bills since privatisation have increased slightly ahead of inflation, bust costs for the industry have increased ahead of that amount even before accounting for the profit extracted from privatisation. 

Altior said:

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

I agree, the aim is we will not, the aim is that potable water will continue to flow and sewage will still be processed, that is something we should aim not to change. It is not a stealth tax, or any kind of tax, it is a required investment to maintain an essential service, one I think the vast majority of the population would like to continue operating. 

Altior

I'm not going to respond to all the individual quotes, I don't want to be here all night     

It is not suddenly, it has been building for decades, we have not increased capture and storage capacity, we have not increased sewage processing capacity, we have been depleting groundwater and during that time we have allowed the population to increase significantly and the impact of climate change will only continue to get worse.

Let's just take the first. I just don't believe the claim that nothing has been invested into capture/storage/sewerage processing 'for decades'. Ofwat may or may not be incompetent, but I don't believe that they have allowed the various water companies not to make capital investments into various areas of the water business at all. Dated stuff is not easy to find in a quick search, so I'll post a random one below.

The population has increased significantly as I've covered, meaning households paying into the system have also increased significantly.

How do you feel 'climate change' will impact the 'water business' across the UK ? I've reached my 6th decade of life and certainly experienced bigger droughts in the first and second of them than anything since. Or do you believe that too much rainfall will be the more pressing issue? 

Anglian Water joins forces with construction giants to secure future water resources for the East of England

08 June 2020

Anglian Water has today announced who will form its new Strategic Pipeline Alliance after a competitive procurement process.

The water company will join forces with construction and engineering giants Costain, Farrans, Jacobs and Mott MacDonald Bentley as part of a contract worth over £350 million, to complete one of the largest strategic water infrastructure projects the UK has ever seen.

The programme forms a key part of Anglian’s Water Resources Management Plan which looks 25 years ahead to manage and secure the water resources by safe-guarding against the potential future impacts of water scarcity, climate change and growth, while protecting the environment.

A vital element of the ambitious plan is to create up to 500km of interconnecting pipes and associated pumping equipment, as well as upgrading existing infrastructure to allow water transfer across Anglian Water’s region. Its single aim is to make the East resilient to the risks of drought by securing water supplies for future generations.

mmmmikey

Hi @Altior I'd be interested to know where you live as I'm convinced if you lived where I do you'd see just how fragile water provision has become. Anglian Water have avoided hosepipe bans so far this year but at the expense of farmers who have been prohibited from taking enough water out of rivers to adequately water their crops. This has happened for a few successive years and isn't sustainable.

That's on top of the recent pump failures.

If you get up one morning, flush the toilet only for the cistern not to refill and open the kitchen tap to make a cup of tea and nothing comes out you realise how critical water supply is. That's exactly what happened to thousands of households here last Tuesday and there was a similar issue the other side of Lincoln a few weeks ago.

Altior

mmmmikey said:

Altior said:

mmmmikey said:

Altior said:

MattMattMattUK said:

billpayer232 said:

Hi I’m a newbie but just received a letter from Severn Trent (ST) about increase prices and today received our bill for 4th Feb - 7th Aug 2025. Yes I’ve used more water….I know the reason, but my concern is that the unit price for water has increased from 181.95p to 260.80p per cubic metre….a 43% increase. Wastewater from 130.08p to 150.04p per cubic metre…a 15% increase. Standing charges for water supply from 10.04p to 18.13p/ day a 80.05% increase and for wastewater 7.42p to 14.22p/ day a 91.6% increase!! Surface water and highway drainage haven’t changed.
Looked on Ofwat…they say overall increase £10 per month or 26% to be expected.
Unsure who to complain to…..Ofwat appears to be a toothless dog! Thought I’d pass on the good tidings to you all.
billpayer232

There is no one to complain to because the increases were approved by Ofwat at the direction of the government. The headline increase figures are the average across all customers, individually it varies depending on usage and tariff type.

We as a nation have hugely under invested in our water supply for many decades, bills were held down, kept too cheap, but new infrastructure was not built, existing infrastructure was not maintained and upgraded to the required level for half a century or more. The increased investment happening now is just about enough reduce the risk of major risk to water supplies, but that does not mean investment is adequate, it is still well behind where it needs to be.

Why is there suddenly a 'major risk to water supplies' ? 

IF there is a major risk (highly questionable), it's not proportionately distributed across all regions.  

Obviously infrastructure needs to be maintained, but that is no different now to say ten years ago/twenty years ago/thirty years ago.

Sure it can be argued that over the last few decades the population has increased by many millions, but then so will the number of households paying a water bill. And the bills we've been paying have significantly increased over that time, too. 

It's vanishingly unlikely we'll see anything tangibly different (aside from this huge step up in another effective stealth tax). 

Hi, if you lived where I do you'd certainly see the difference in the form of a big reservoir, but you need to condition yourself to accept that reservoirs take a long time to build.

Obviously not disputing new reservoirs take time to build. I don't need conditioning for accepting that. 

Where do you live ? 

My apologies for the clumsy choice of words, it wasn't my intention to insult your intelligence.  Thank you for your graceful response

What I really meant to say was something to the effect that it will take some time to see anything tangible as the kind of investment needed is long term. Some of it also involves replacing aging infrastructure that breaks occasionally and replacing leaky pipes which don't really involve doing anything tangible you can see. It's going to take a lot of investment in the maintenance / repairs needed just to stand still.

I live south of Lincoln and the reservoir is planned for land by Sleaford. 

We've had various outtages in the area over the last few months due to failures at local pumping stations so it's very clear that work is needed if you live around here. There is also major work on a new pipeline underway and when you see that happening it makes you realise just how much underground pipework there is and how much it's going to take to get it all up to scratch.

Thanks, no worries at all!

Personally I don't dispute that work is required around various specific pinch points around the country. I however don't believe that there is an immediate risk to water supplies across the nation, one that justifies the near 50% increase across the board.

I also agree that massive projects do require some patience. And the impact of them won't always be immediately obvious.

I don't wish to make this political, so I won't, but the disjointed system we have now, with complete lack of accountability of unelected quangos and elected politicians with implied real power only really being concerned with managing tomorrow's headlines has landed us where we are now.

I have grown weary of the expectation of anything state run or pseudo state run being delivered on time and and budget, or anything close to it. I am also sceptical of their messaging and social manipulation. Consequently I am deeply sceptical that the massive hike in the costs of my water bills will end up with tangible improvements. We only have to look at something like HS2 to realise how lamentable it can get.

Del Boy was famous for saying this time next year we'll be millionaires, well at least that did come to fruition eventually. Perhaps this time we'll see a positive impact for the massive hikes, but my breath is not being held! 

Altior

mmmmikey said:

Hi @Altior I'd be interested to know where you live as I'm convinced if you lived where I do you'd see just how fragile water provision has become. Anglian Water have avoided hosepipe bans so far this year but at the expense of farmers who have been prohibited from taking enough water out of rivers to adequately water their crops. This has happened for a few successive years and isn't sustainable.

That's on top of the recent pump failures.

If you get up one morning, flush the toilet only for the cistern not to refill and open the kitchen tap to make a cup of tea and nothing comes out you realise how critical water supply is. That's exactly what happened to thousands of households here last Tuesday and there was a similar issue the other side of Lincoln a few weeks ago.

I'm in North Bucks, Anglian is my supplier. I actually live in what was a brand new build area which is now over a decade old. 

My first bill was circa £7 pcm and it's now approaching £50. In a little over ten years. In part at least due to the abolition of the SoLow tariff. I live alone and will do always, whilst I am still around.