Water bills for millions of households in England are to increase by even more than expected after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.
An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided provisionally to let the companies collectively charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn the companies had sought.
