Water Companies Could Charge More During Droughts.
Comments
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Just in case anyone is worried I think the article makes this sound worse than it necessarily is. The idea isn't simply that water companies can put everyone's bills up whenever there's a drought. Ofwat is looking at different charging systems to encourage people to use less water when supplies are under pressure, with trials suggesting that some customers could actually pay less. It's still reasonable to question whether this is the best approach, particularly given the problems water companies have had with leaks and investment, but I don't think there's any need for any of us to panic about suddenly being hit with a huge drought surcharge.
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It says in the article that if approved by Ofwat it will start in April 2027. I would not hold my breath that the water companies will ever reduce bills, just not charge the surcharge in winter when demand is not as high.
Some members with certain medical conditions might be eligible for a reduction in bills due to using more water than average but this is down to each water company.
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I think the important thing is that this is still a proposal and the exact way it would work hasn't been decided yet. Hopefully, if it does go ahead, there will be safeguards so that people who genuinely need to use more water aren't unfairly penalised, particularly those with medical needs. It will also be interesting to see whether the pricing actually changes people's water use in practice.
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Those of you might remember these two thing.
1 - water companies charge extra to get rid of extra water.
2 - the older ones will remember The Rates.
How many extra taxes is the government ( which ever party ) going to sneak in?
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What a disgrace, how can essential public services be sold off to become profit making enterprises for foreign capital, who know they have a captive customer base? I'm so glad Scottish Water is still under public ownership.
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@Bluebell21 the link redirects me to the main yahoo home page. Anyone else having this problem?
My mum always said water would be the resource we all end up fighting over and I sadly think she may be right
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Looks like Yahoo might have changed the link @Mr_Shoes_Tied. I think this is the same article, maybe this link will work:
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Sorry about that it was the right link yesterday.
Rosie has now posted the right link again. Mums are usually right.
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Thanks Rosie that is the link I posted yesterday must have updated to something else today.
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I recommend looking at water tariffs in arid and desert countries and thinking about why greedy British capitalists demand many times more.
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One of thr problems is that in the south and southeast of England- specifically, we are short of water. There are plans to build 10 new reservoirs but only 1 is currently underway.
The money for them is not there yet. So who pays? Ofwat / Govt should have started earlier you can argue as these were thought about 40 odd years ago. But...
Perhaps we could pay by usage? Might encourage less lawn watering in droughts!
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Watering lawns is a scarecrow. This water flows mainly into water sources and a small part evaporates, cooling the air and reducing air conditioning costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
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I agree with the above commenter who said water is the resource we will fight over.
I live in Kent, a reservoir was proposed decades ago and hasn’t materialised. This year we’ve had to queue for hours to get bottled water as we’ve had no or little pressure. I think it’s partly due to the number of new builds in our area over the last few years we’ve had 1,000s of new homes built but no infrastructure for supply or drainage, with sewerage being regularly pumped into the sea. The whole system needs to be looked at. Yet our bill, received this week, has gone up - despite us being very water conscious. I’ve lost £100’s worth of plants as I’m not using the hosepipe.
As you can imagine it’s a hot topic here. I think water companies should be government run. I agree with meters, however a small amount of water (a couple of liters per person per day) should be included in the basic charge. Then there should be bands, those that use unusually high amounts of water should be charged more eg those that are filling swimming pools, etc. The water boards need to look at their infrastructure- I have friends who don’t have a meter as the water board can’t work out the pipes on their property. I’ve also heard of the solar farms using sprinklers the other week to stop the panels overheating.1 -
We don't have water meters in Scotland, we pay a water and sewerage charge on top of our council tax.
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When we moved to Devon, where we lived for 17 years, I already had a water meter installed in the property that we rented. Which as it turned out, only two of us in the home, to be cheaper than paying without a water meter.
So I decided that we would lessen flushing, share baths, use water from washing up etc to save a bit more. We were successful and this resulted in several visits from SWW coming to check how we were using so little water?
There was nothing wrong with our meter, we were just frugal. So much so that two of our neighbours changed to meters, one of them had lived in the same property for decades.
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That's another hit on all of the people in areas with terrible supply companies. In the SE we were under drought restrictions from the middle of last year up until February of this year. We had 4 months before they were back in place. We already pay significantly more for our water.
That's not just lower supplies, that's seriously contributed to by major leaks that are inadequately repaired, zero investment in new reservoirs to supply huge increases in housing and massive payouts to executives and shareholders so there is insufficient money to rectify the situation.
Before anyone thinks I think other areas would have better service, I don't, but don't have figures to hand.
And don't get me started on Southern Water's sewerage leaks into the environment endangering wildlife and spoiling land, sea and rivers for years to come.
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