Thames Water says without steep bill increase it’s ‘neither financeable nor investible’

Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water supplier, could collapse into a government-handled administration process. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Thames Water has said it will be unable to recover from its funding crisis if it is blocked from charging customers significantly more, as it proposed to pile an extra £228 a year on to household bills.

The debt-laden company said the increase to bills that has been proposed by the industry regulator, Ofwat, leaves its activities “neither financeable nor investible”.