[News] Well done southern water

[beorhthelm]

You missed the bit where 50% of the amount of money spent on infrastructure upgrades and maintenance went into the pockets of shareholders as pure profit, most of whom are foreign companies or individuals? And you mention reducing wastefulness?

i didnt, if no dividend was paid you'd still have a substantial rise in bills to cover the investment. the point wasnt about ownership, water is not suitable to be privately owned. its about acknowledging investment costs, and that cost gets passed on somewhere.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

metered water and general cost of improvements and pipe renewal should have increased your water bill. its unavoidable, even intended (to reduce wastefulness), just like legislation to clean up discharge more will lead to increased bills. this would happen regardless of the ownership model, unless we have it funded out of general taxation, which just shifts the bill so we dont see it. increasing bills in line with inflation would only cover the basic running and maintenance, not new investment.

Have you factored in decades of neglect and asset stripping?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Apologies for jumping in on you more than a week later, but I couldn't ignore this. Please look into this a little deeper, because I believe you will have a complete reversal of opinion if you examine things a little more closely. Some points you may wish to check up on.

Scottish Water, is publicly owned, and has invested nearly 35% more per household in infrastructure since 2002 than the privatised English water companies, according to analysis, and It charges users 14% less.

Water prices rose 50% within four years of privatisation, and prior to Thatcher intervening in the way the Water boards operated, they were run efficiently. She removed their ability to go to the market for borrowing for infrastructure works, and limited the increases they could make to bills, meaning they could not invest in infrastructure, and then pointed at them as ineffective authorities.
The newly created, privately owned, water and sewerage companies paid £7.6 billion for the regional water authorities. The government (us effectively) assumed responsibility for the sector's total debts amounting to £5 billion and granted the WSCs a further £1.5 billion of public funds.

The £60 Billion or so the Water companies have paid out in dividends since, is roughly equivalent to the amount that they have borrowed, and about half what they have spent on infrastructure. This means all infrastructure investment has been paid for by consumers bills, and the borrowing is only required to pay the large CEO salaries (above £2M a year in some cases) and dividends.

Clearly, things could be different if they were publicly owned, either they could be debt free and we could still be paying the same amount as we are, with the same level of infrastructure investment, or we could be paying a bit less and there would be a bit of debt, or we could be paying the same and have invested 50% more in infrastructure and have the same levels of debt. All of these, and other alternatives, would seem better to me than the status quo.

Thought I'd bounce your post as a rebuttal to bre'er inevitable above who thinks this is all unavoidable.

 

[beorhthelm]

Thought I'd bounce your post as a rebuttal to bre'er inevitable above who thinks this is all unavoidable.

thank you for the assist. the issue highlighted was bills going up double the rate of inflation. that pieces states publically owned Scottish Water saves their customers only 14%. so they still went up well above inflation.
i am not saying what you think im saying, that privatisation makes it all lovely. lets invest all the dividends into the infrastructure, bills would still have risen substantially more than inflation.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

thank you for the assist. the issue highlighted was bills going up double the rate of inflation. that pieces states publically owned Scottish Water saves their customers only 14%. so they still went up well above inflation.
i am not saying what you think im saying, that privatisation makes it all lovely. lets invest all the dividends into the infrastructure, bills would still have risen substantially more than inflation.

I'm more concerned about the sewage. We have had most of our North Kent beaches closed due to pollution from sewage this summer. This is symptomatic of the problem. And the problem is privatisation.

Apparently we now have the worst beaches in the EU. Fortunately this is now irrelevant, because we have left the EU. Genius

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

(I’m not a leftie as such, a floating voter).

Unfortunate use of term here ......

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I'm more concerned about the sewage. We have had most of our North Kent beaches closed due to pollution from sewage this summer. This is symptomatic of the problem. And the problem is privatisation.

Apparently we now have the worst beaches in the EU. Fortunately this is now irrelevant, because we have left the EU. Genius

Not forgetting the chemicals used for water treatment come from Europe as we don’t make our own.

 

[A1X]

I wonder if this is what people had in mind when they rushed to vote for Thatcher and her privatisation agenda.

A foreign-owned water supply, asset stripped, and pumping our own shit into our own sea.

Lovely.

It's almost like short-term "get rich quick" schemes end up having long term consequences.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I am just off for a swim later this morning. Were I in charge I would make all Southern Water senior staff have a morning swim every day. Head under the water. Right along the coast. It might concentrate their minds.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Not forgetting the chemicals used for water treatment come from Europe as we don’t make our own.

It's a 'supply chain' issue.

 

[Weststander]

For balance, this incompetence has gone on for literally decades, Surfers Against Sewage was founded in 1990. It was well known when in the 70’s and 80’s that the seawater on Sussex beaches including Brighton was disgusting.

But the water companies have failed. Their vast income is circa double that in real terms of 1990. They’re blaming population increase, urban expansion and climate change (lower capacity of rock strata to hold water, giving more run off). But the first two have exploded since 1998. In real time, with their vastly increased income, the water companies have had 23 years to keep up.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The Covid virus lives for days in untreated effluent.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7528884/

 

[Wardy's twin]

Unfortunate use of term here ......

 

[Jim in the West]

I know it's fashionable to blame the water companies (and - full disclosure - I work for one*), but much of the blame recently lies with Ofwat (and the government). The regulatory system in England required water companies to develop 5 year capital plans, which are then approved by Ofwat, and charges set accordingly. The current problem is that Ofwat and the government have been desperate to see low customer bills. As a result, water companies have had to prune their capital spending in order to get their business plans approved. The water companies actually want to invest more, but the current regulatory system is an impediment to that. The industry body that represents the water companies was in favour of the amendment proposed by the Duke of Wellington (the one that most Tory MPs voted against).

*In my defence, I work for a "water only company" - ie, one which is not involved in the waste/sewage side of things. It's also been a private company for all its 175 years - and has very high customer satisfaction rates.

 

[Baldseagull]

I'm more concerned about the sewage. We have had most of our North Kent beaches closed due to pollution from sewage this summer. This is symptomatic of the problem. And the problem is privatisation.

Apparently we now have the worst beaches in the EU. Fortunately this is now irrelevant, because we have left the EU. Genius

The fact our waters are not clean enough, was/is part of the reason we have trouble exporting shellfish without prior purification to the EU. When we were members, the purification could take place anywhere within the EU, as they originated within the EU, and our exporters relied on the recipient carrying out the purification, as after purification they need to be sold quite soon. To try and get round this, DEFRA advised businesses to use a different export code, one meant for shellfish not for consumption, usually used for imports for the purpose of stocking rivers and ponds, which of course, the EU stopped from being imported as it was clear they were going to food processors, leading to the wastage of the shipments. Our Government has asked the EU to reclassify the affected waters, as being class A, instead of B, and is also proposing to build the purification tanks needed for shellfish from class B waters, however as the process shortens the shelf life, exporters say this then makes their consignments even more time critical and at risk of loss from export delays, and that the capacity required would be far larger than anything the Government has proposed.

If we are asking the EU to rate the water as cleaner, we should meet them at least halfway, and actually try and make the waters cleaner.

The first 3 mins of this video gives a grim example of one the problems of dumping raw shit into coastal waters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJLKhsLx18

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The fact our waters are not clean enough, was/is part of the reason we have trouble exporting shellfish without prior purification to the EU. When we were members, the purification could take place anywhere within the EU, as they originated within the EU, and our exporters relied on the recipient carrying out the purification, as after purification they need to be sold quite soon. To try and get round this, DEFRA advised businesses to use a different export code, one meant for shellfish not for consumption, usually used for imports for the purpose of stocking rivers and ponds, which of course, the EU stopped from being imported as it was clear they were going to food processors, leading to the wastage of the shipments. Our Government has asked the EU to reclassify the affected waters, as being class A, instead of B, and is also proposing to build the purification tanks needed for shellfish from class B waters, however as the process shortens the shelf life, exporters say this then makes their consignments even more time critical and at risk of loss from export delays, and that the capacity required would be far larger than anything the Government has proposed.

The first 3 mins of this video gives a grim example of one the problems of dumping raw shit into coastal waters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJLKhsLx18

I will resist stating the equivalent of 'if we wanted to make progress we shouldn't have been staring from here'. But yes, our waters are not clean enough and this has to change. HMG just voted against a proposal to fix this, citing the maximum cost possible to turn every puddle into sparkling spring water to justify no action. But middle ground intervention is possible. My guess is that something will be presented in the next few months and, rather like today's budget, will be announced as a great socialist bit of levelling up (although they won't be using the 's' word, of course). I can't believe HMG simply expect us to import shellfisk and nip off to the Bahamas if we fancy a swim. I suspect the recent vote was simply a case of not wanting anyone other than HMG get any credit for anything. Which is.....clever politics, perhaps.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I know it's fashionable to blame the water companies (and - full disclosure - I work for one*), but much of the blame recently lies with Ofwat (and the government). The regulatory system in England required water companies to develop 5 year capital plans, which are then approved by Ofwat, and charges set accordingly. The current problem is that Ofwat and the government have been desperate to see low customer bills. As a result, water companies have had to prune their capital spending in order to get their business plans approved. The water companies actually want to invest more, but the current regulatory system is an impediment to that. The industry body that represents the water companies was in favour of the amendment proposed by the Duke of Wellington (the one that most Tory MPs voted against).

*In my defence, I work for a "water only company" - ie, one which is not involved in the waste/sewage side of things. It's also been a private company for all its 175 years - and has very high customer satisfaction rates.

Save it for the judge.

How about keeping bills low by reducing dividends ?

 

[Jim in the West]

Just when you thought the Government had safely U-turned on something, they go back on their word....

A couple of weeks ago a majority of MPs voted to legalise the dumping of raw sewage in our rivers and seas. There was public outrage, and the government appeared to do a U-turn. However, on Friday night the text of the proposed new amendment to the Environment Bill was released. Unfortunately this is extremely vague - it requires water companies to progressively reduce the amount of raw sewage and pollutants that they pump into our rivers, but there is no timescale, and no definition of what counts as “progressively reducing”…a water company would be able to comply with the law via miniscule reductions over decades. In addition, the general public will have no right to seek enforcement action under this proposal….only a Government minister would be able to take any action.
The Duke of Wellington’s amendment (which MPs rejected on 25th October) places a "Duty on sewerage undertakers to take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows” - THAT is what our MPs should demand. If you believe strongly in this issue, and believe we should be able to use our rivers safely, or go to the beach and not worry about swimming in raw sewage, then email your MP urgently, asking him/her to reject the Government’s proposed amendment, and vote instead for that proposed by the House of Lords. The vote takes place on Monday, so there is no time to lose!

 

[CheeseRolls]

Couldn't decide which Southern Water thread to bounce. (Mods any chance of a merge, so we can have a single clusterf*ck thread)

For anyone following or impacted by the water supply issue around Hastings. This is just so predictable.

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2...challenged-over-pipe-declared-outworn-in-2007

 

[rippleman]

It is shameful but it will continue to happen with increasing regularity all the time the focus of Southern Water (and other water companies) is on profits. It will be a serious test of Sir Starmer to see how quickly he re-nationalises the water industry so that the focus is on supply and service.

Southern Water PROFITS for AYE 31-3-23 were just under £370m.