Most Thames Water customers demand only two things from their supplier: that clean drinkable water pours from their tops when they turn them on — every single time — and that the company deals with their waste water and returns it to the river cleaned up and in a fit state so that it does no harm to the environment.
They expect to pay for those two essential services and would accept that those bills will have to rise over time as costs go up in line with inflation. As we know Thames has a far from unblemished record on both those scores with bursts from ageing pipes resulting in far too frequent interruption to supply in London.
Thames still loses almost a quarter of the water it puts into the system before it reaches our taps. It is also clear that the quality of the water going back into the Thames is unacceptable with one recent test finding that levels of E coli on the Boat Race course were nearly 10 times higher than levels found in bathing waters graded as “poor” by the Environment Agency.
Now those same customers have been told that bills may have to go up as much as 44% by 2030 if those shortfalls and failings are to have any chance of being put right.
Customers could just about stomach that if it was not for the decades of poor management, dubiously complex financial engineering, and high levels of dividends to shareholders that have marked the corporate stewardship of Thames.
We have arrived at a situation where there is no confidence in the ownership of a business that has the monopoly in supplying water to 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, and millions of other less exalted homes across London and the Thames Valley.
Today’s new investment plan, which raises the possibility of bills going up by almost £200 over five years, will do nothing to improve that unhappy situation, particularly as it does not explain how shareholders, rather than just customers, will share the pain.
