Thames Water- Finished?
Discussion
otolith said:
Excessive surface water runoff is an issue, but there has been widespread discharging under low flow and even drought conditions. It's inexcusable.
Yes... and as I said part of that is maintenance (I.e. clearing the chamber) and part is abuse that (which includes people misusing water generally)."The Environment Agency is launching a consultation on proposed changes to water quality permitting charges.
The proposed changes will increase charge income for the Environment Agency, allowing it to take tougher action on pollution.
This is the first time permit charges have been reviewed since 2018."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/consultation-la...
The proposed changes will increase charge income for the Environment Agency, allowing it to take tougher action on pollution.
This is the first time permit charges have been reviewed since 2018."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/consultation-la...
Evanivitch said:
otolith said:
Excessive surface water runoff is an issue, but there has been widespread discharging under low flow and even drought conditions. It's inexcusable.
Yes... and as I said part of that is maintenance (I.e. clearing the chamber) and part is abuse that (which includes people misusing water generally).This was Anglian water rather than Thames but I suspect they are all largely the same. Talk about piss poor processes.
They fitted a smart meter at my property. Couple of days later they write to me saying we think you have a leak and are losing 10lts an hour day and night. I phone them and they have me do some checks. Turn off the internal stop cock and check the meter is still going. They say they will send someone who will listen for a leak and if its on their side they will fix.
Someone turns up and does what I have already done on the phone, turns the stop cock off and checks. Then says it needs a visit from the network team who can do more investigation and listen for the leak. I said they told me thats what you were doing.
Couple of days later someone else turns up. Uses a metal pole thing and listens on the meter, and then inside at my stop cock. Cant find a leak. Then says it needs a visit from another team to dig out the meter. That will be within 10 days. So I wait, meanwhile keep getting letters from them saying you havent fixed that leak yet.
Team come, dig out the meter, find the leak on the external stop tap. Say its fixed, phone the accounts department and they will do a credit to the account for the water lost.
Phone the accounts, no cant do it, since the team came and fixed the leak the smart meter has stopped sending reads. Someone will phone you shortly to book in another visit. Someone then phones, not to book in a visit, but to tell me that someone will phone me to book in a visit. Yeah I know I was told that earlier.
So now waiting for this. A simple leak has taken 4 visits, 5 phone calls, and countless letters. Now wonder they are all in debt.
They fitted a smart meter at my property. Couple of days later they write to me saying we think you have a leak and are losing 10lts an hour day and night. I phone them and they have me do some checks. Turn off the internal stop cock and check the meter is still going. They say they will send someone who will listen for a leak and if its on their side they will fix.
Someone turns up and does what I have already done on the phone, turns the stop cock off and checks. Then says it needs a visit from the network team who can do more investigation and listen for the leak. I said they told me thats what you were doing.
Couple of days later someone else turns up. Uses a metal pole thing and listens on the meter, and then inside at my stop cock. Cant find a leak. Then says it needs a visit from another team to dig out the meter. That will be within 10 days. So I wait, meanwhile keep getting letters from them saying you havent fixed that leak yet.
Team come, dig out the meter, find the leak on the external stop tap. Say its fixed, phone the accounts department and they will do a credit to the account for the water lost.
Phone the accounts, no cant do it, since the team came and fixed the leak the smart meter has stopped sending reads. Someone will phone you shortly to book in another visit. Someone then phones, not to book in a visit, but to tell me that someone will phone me to book in a visit. Yeah I know I was told that earlier.
So now waiting for this. A simple leak has taken 4 visits, 5 phone calls, and countless letters. Now wonder they are all in debt.
Scabutz said:
This was Anglian water rather than Thames but I suspect they are all largely the same. Talk about piss poor processes.
They fitted a smart meter at my property. Couple of days later they write to me saying we think you have a leak and are losing 10lts an hour day and night. I phone them and they have me do some checks. Turn off the internal stop cock and check the meter is still going. They say they will send someone who will listen for a leak and if its on their side they will fix.
Someone turns up and does what I have already done on the phone, turns the stop cock off and checks. Then says it needs a visit from the network team who can do more investigation and listen for the leak. I said they told me thats what you were doing.
Couple of days later someone else turns up. Uses a metal pole thing and listens on the meter, and then inside at my stop cock. Cant find a leak. Then says it needs a visit from another team to dig out the meter. That will be within 10 days. So I wait, meanwhile keep getting letters from them saying you havent fixed that leak yet.
Team come, dig out the meter, find the leak on the external stop tap. Say its fixed, phone the accounts department and they will do a credit to the account for the water lost.
Phone the accounts, no cant do it, since the team came and fixed the leak the smart meter has stopped sending reads. Someone will phone you shortly to book in another visit. Someone then phones, not to book in a visit, but to tell me that someone will phone me to book in a visit. Yeah I know I was told that earlier.
So now waiting for this. A simple leak has taken 4 visits, 5 phone calls, and countless letters. Now wonder they are all in debt.
Jobs for the boys!They fitted a smart meter at my property. Couple of days later they write to me saying we think you have a leak and are losing 10lts an hour day and night. I phone them and they have me do some checks. Turn off the internal stop cock and check the meter is still going. They say they will send someone who will listen for a leak and if its on their side they will fix.
Someone turns up and does what I have already done on the phone, turns the stop cock off and checks. Then says it needs a visit from the network team who can do more investigation and listen for the leak. I said they told me thats what you were doing.
Couple of days later someone else turns up. Uses a metal pole thing and listens on the meter, and then inside at my stop cock. Cant find a leak. Then says it needs a visit from another team to dig out the meter. That will be within 10 days. So I wait, meanwhile keep getting letters from them saying you havent fixed that leak yet.
Team come, dig out the meter, find the leak on the external stop tap. Say its fixed, phone the accounts department and they will do a credit to the account for the water lost.
Phone the accounts, no cant do it, since the team came and fixed the leak the smart meter has stopped sending reads. Someone will phone you shortly to book in another visit. Someone then phones, not to book in a visit, but to tell me that someone will phone me to book in a visit. Yeah I know I was told that earlier.
So now waiting for this. A simple leak has taken 4 visits, 5 phone calls, and countless letters. Now wonder they are all in debt.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68682198
Investors won't invest £4BN unless regulator raises price cap.
Investors won't invest £4BN unless regulator raises price cap.
snuffy said:
This will be getting people excited at work today I reckon , since the company I work for has been working on the Thames Turd Tunnel for the last 8 years.
But it's a different company however.
A major construction project like the TTT would normally now be handed over to the infrastructure operating company (Thames Water in this case). But its investors are deliberately keeping it separate as they don't want their nice new asset swallowed up by the govt if and when TW gets nationalised. But it's a different company however.
So TW want to raise the prices by 40% to pay for the Financial mismanagement of themselves rather than stopping paying dividends to sort it out, if they'd have turned off the dividends, it would have meant turning off the bonuses and perks. Couldn't do that.
So they want the bills to rocket.
It's got to go bust. There's no way that they are getting out of 14bn (and growing) debt.
So they want the bills to rocket.
It's got to go bust. There's no way that they are getting out of 14bn (and growing) debt.
borcy said:
I guess it's another company down the toilet then.
Oh well. Regulator best not blink - we've got to be prepared to let it go bankrupt: that way the investors either add more funds, or lose it all. If the taxpayer is going to be picking up the pieces we should be getting the assets: not just nationalising the loses/shareholder greed.
They may as well all be re-nationalised, unless you can bring some competition into the market in the same way the electricity system works.
Otherwise what is the "right level" of bills? How is that calculated? If we want to replace Victorian sewers and upgrade treatment plants so that it doesn't all overflow during rainy periods that needs paying for. Shareholders want a return on their investment. Staff want to be paid. Meanwhile the regulator fines them for poor performance which just means less cash to invest in fixing the issues they are being fined for.
The water industry never has worked well as a private business because there is no competition. The privatised businesses which do exist have been laden with a lot of debt, with investors removing all that money as dividends instead of investing the money into improvements for customers. Ofwat have been totally asleep at the wheel as they thought they were regulating water companies, and were totally unprepared to regulate the financial slights of hand until it was far too late.
Otherwise what is the "right level" of bills? How is that calculated? If we want to replace Victorian sewers and upgrade treatment plants so that it doesn't all overflow during rainy periods that needs paying for. Shareholders want a return on their investment. Staff want to be paid. Meanwhile the regulator fines them for poor performance which just means less cash to invest in fixing the issues they are being fined for.
The water industry never has worked well as a private business because there is no competition. The privatised businesses which do exist have been laden with a lot of debt, with investors removing all that money as dividends instead of investing the money into improvements for customers. Ofwat have been totally asleep at the wheel as they thought they were regulating water companies, and were totally unprepared to regulate the financial slights of hand until it was far too late.
S600BSB said:
Really hope the new Labour government makes tackling the sewage spill crisis a priority. The water companies are an absolute disgrace and the regulatory framework governing the way they operate needs root and branch change. A truly awful example of broken Britain.
They won't. They'll stand in the house of commons saying its the tories fault for the next few years whilst doing nothing about it. They'll keep saying it everytime a doubling of the debt is raised without doing anything. Nothing. Then at the next election They'll raise it again. Saying it is the tories fault not theirs. Hugo Stiglitz said:
S600BSB said:
Really hope the new Labour government makes tackling the sewage spill crisis a priority. The water companies are an absolute disgrace and the regulatory framework governing the way they operate needs root and branch change. A truly awful example of broken Britain.
They won't. They'll stand in the house of commons saying its the tories fault for the next few years whilst doing nothing about it. They'll keep saying it everytime a doubling of the debt is raised without doing anything. Nothing. Then at the next election They'll raise it again. Saying it is the tories fault not theirs. Condi said:
They may as well all be re-nationalised, unless you can bring some competition into the market in the same way the electricity system works.
Otherwise what is the "right level" of bills? How is that calculated? If we want to replace Victorian sewers and upgrade treatment plants so that it doesn't all overflow during rainy periods that needs paying for. Shareholders want a return on their investment. Staff want to be paid. Meanwhile the regulator fines them for poor performance which just means less cash to invest in fixing the issues they are being fined for.
The water industry never has worked well as a private business because there is no competition. The privatised businesses which do exist have been laden with a lot of debt, with investors removing all that money as dividends instead of investing the money into improvements for customers. Ofwat have been totally asleep at the wheel as they thought they were regulating water companies, and were totally unprepared to regulate the financial slights of hand until it was far too late.
Definitely needs renationalising. But it should be done by letting them go bust and current investors getting nothing.Otherwise what is the "right level" of bills? How is that calculated? If we want to replace Victorian sewers and upgrade treatment plants so that it doesn't all overflow during rainy periods that needs paying for. Shareholders want a return on their investment. Staff want to be paid. Meanwhile the regulator fines them for poor performance which just means less cash to invest in fixing the issues they are being fined for.
The water industry never has worked well as a private business because there is no competition. The privatised businesses which do exist have been laden with a lot of debt, with investors removing all that money as dividends instead of investing the money into improvements for customers. Ofwat have been totally asleep at the wheel as they thought they were regulating water companies, and were totally unprepared to regulate the financial slights of hand until it was far too late.
If some of the others buck their ideas up and start running them properly, they can stay private.
The regulation piece, however, should be an alarm bell for how renationalised portions will end up being run. It's a good chunk of why they were privatised in the first place.
We probably need to look at the whole way companies are structured, dividends paid etc etc across all indistries in the country, as there seems to be way too much gaming haoprning. But that's a fair old minefield.
Murph7355 said:
We probably need to look at the whole way companies are structured, dividends paid etc etc across all indistries in the country, as there seems to be way too much gaming haoprning. But that's a fair old minefield.
Not really, if there are 2 businesses in a market and 1 is very efficient and makes a lot of money but the other doesn't make much money then obviously the owners of the first business should be rewarded/paid for their success. The problem with water is that the customers have no choice who they buy from, so there is no natural way for crap businesses to go bust and successful business to do well. The regulator decides how much they can charge, which is always a judgement and an opinion, rather than letting the market and competition decide.
t idea. The money that has gone to shareholders is a joke and we are now seeing the results. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff