Thames Water

[Dick Knights Mumm]

It hasn’t… their gameplan is always to simply run it into the ground, pay as little out as possible to maintain it whilst extracting as much money out as possible.

Then hand it back to the tax payer to sort out.

We see it over and over again.

It is a shocking attitude - but it does look that way.

 

[Grizz]

And our bill has just gone up 25% for their failings.

 

[Lurchy]

And our bill has just gone up 25% for their failings.

Southern Water has plans for a 73% increase… they are literally taking the piss with that.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Southern Water has plans for a 73% increase… they are literally taking the piss with that.

just checked and according to the Southern Water website, they are planning to increase prices in line with inflation (9.4% for dual service customers) although that article was dated as february

Southern water increases customer bills in line with inflation and supports struggling customers with £98m of help

www.southernwater.co.uk

If referring to this

Southern Water 'plans to hike bills by £279 a year' - Energy Live News

Leaked documents have revealed the company's plan to impose a 73% price increase on households

www.energylivenews.com

it's over 5 years and only one of several options being discussed and this 73% plan may never be chosen as the option they impliment

From the same article, and using same logic for the 73% figure headline, then it could just as easily have said that SW are planning to reduce annual bills by £10 from the current price by 2030

In the leaked documents, Southern Water acknowledged the option of a “least cost plan” that could save households £10 by 2030.

Selectivism at it's best, using the scare figure

 

[Thunder Bolt]

just checked and according to the Southern Water website, they are planning to increase prices in line with inflation (9.4% for dual service customers) although that article was dated as february

Southern water increases customer bills in line with inflation and supports struggling customers with £98m of help

www.southernwater.co.uk

If referring to this

Southern Water 'plans to hike bills by £279 a year' - Energy Live News

Leaked documents have revealed the company's plan to impose a 73% price increase on households

www.energylivenews.com

it's over 5 years and only one of several options being discussed and this 73% plan may never be chosen as the option they impliment

From the same article, and using same logic for the 73% figure headline, then it could just as easily have said that SW are planning to reduce annual bills by £10 from the current price by 2030

Selectivism at it's best, using the scare figure

Standard practice. Use the scare figure and then customers are relieved at 'only having to pay 50%' more.

See every Spring just before the Budget.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Standard practice. Use the scare figure and then customers are relieved at 'only having to pay 50%' more.

See every Spring just before the Budget.

Is it? seeing as the source of that figure isn't something that appears to have been released into the public domain by the company (if it is even true and was actually something they have discussed internally that then got leaked).

Surely it's also a tactic used by those who have it in for an individual or organisation, to try to paint them as untrustworthy and dodgy as possible and to support their views and trying to pursuade others to join them in holding the same view on them.

 

[Si Gull]

Capitalism has failed

Ministers weigh contingency plan for collapse of Thames Water

Whitehall officials and Ofwat, the water regulator, have begun assessing the scope for a special administration of the UK’s biggest water company, Sky News learns.

news.sky.com

Capitalism has failed the vast majority of the population but there's a bunch of people, benefitting from the ongoing asset stripping of the nation, that have never had it so good. Privatisation of a basic human requirement (water), whatever were they thinking of? Creaming off yet more ££££££ maybe? The country is well and truly f***ed yet you still hear countless 'ordinary folk' either defending the government or trotting out the 'but Corbyn' trope.

I'm not sure there's much hope tbh.

 

[BrightonCottager]

The Australian Bank Macquarie that took over Thames Water, racked up huge debts while building the Thames Tunnel, now effectively own Southern Water. There have been a lot of ex Thames Water people coming into SW, including its CEO. Although OFWAT claim they'd prevent the same thing happening, I'm not so sure they could.

Today's meeting between J Hunt and OFWAT will inevitably result in an announcement that bills will be kept affordable, so we'll be getting even more sh%t in the rivers and sea (not that SW intend to upgrade our local wastewater plant until 2045-50 anyway. That's the one that discharged raw sewage for nearly 200 hours into the sea in 2022).

The water industry privatisation was botched so badly, what the water companies have done is - in capitalist terms - entirely understandable and logical. Anyone would have thought there was a neoliberal plot to enrich capitalists using government laws and power!

 

[Mr Phil]

It’s a perfectly cromulent word

 

[nicko31]

This happened last October when a hose pipe ban was in place

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-10-04/avoid-the-area-burst-water-main-floods-dual-carriageway-as-taps-run-dry

Not enough investment, bills are going to have to rise

 

[Guy Fawkes]

The Australian Bank Macquarie that took over Thames Water, racked up huge debts while building the Thames Tunnel, now effectively own Southern Water. There have been a lot of ex Thames Water people coming into SW, including its CEO. Although OFWAT claim they'd prevent the same thing happening, I'm not so sure they could.

Today's meeting between J Hunt and OFWAT will inevitably result in an announcement that bills will be kept affordable, so we'll be getting even more sh%t in the rivers and sea (not that SW intend to upgrade our local wastewater plant until 2045-50 anyway. That's the one that discharged raw sewage for nearly 200 hours into the sea in 2022).

The water industry privatisation was botched so badly, what the water companies have done is - in capitalist terms - entirely understandable and logical. Anyone would have thought there was a neoliberal plot to enrich capitalists using government laws and power!

Having recently spoken directly to someone who used to work in the water industry during public ownership, they said that the usual practice of the day was to have short fall outlet sewers running untreated sewage straight into the sea / rivers as the standard practice. they would use screens to try to catch some of it, but they often got clogged / damaged and would be removed allowing it to flow staight out of the sewers into the waterways

So where has this myth that it is a practice that has only been used since privatisation? and everything was rosy when in public hands?

 

[Van Cleef]

Capitalism has failed the vast majority of the population but there's a bunch of people, benefitting from the ongoing asset stripping of the nation, that have never had it so good. Privatisation of a basic human requirement (water), whatever were they thinking of? Creaming off yet more ££££££ maybe? The country is well and truly f***ed yet you still hear countless 'ordinary folk' either defending the government or trotting out the 'but Corbyn' trope.

I'm not sure there's much hope tbh.

Utilities are an investors dream. With toothless regulators and almost guaranteed profits with negligible risk. Not surprising they all fell over themselves grabbing a piece of the action. I work in the electricity industry where things are certainly no different.

 

[Norman Potting]

Do you recall that around 40 years ago many of us (self included) piled in to buy shares in various nationalised industries and then sell them on quickly to make a quick profit. Similarly, did any of you purchase council houses at a good price - wasn't it that position but would have done so had circumstances allowed? ....With the benefit of hindsight......

 

[Doc Lynam]

Was it the Conservatives that privatised the water companies? If so I guess it weakened the unions.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Is it? seeing as the source of that figure isn't something that appears to have been released into the public domain by the company (if it is even true and was actually something they have discussed internally that then got leaked).

Surely it's also a tactic used by those who have it in for an individual or organisation, to try to paint them as untrustworthy and dodgy as possible and to support their views and trying to pursuade others to join them in holding the same view on them.

Public in plot to undermine credibility of water suppliers in shock horror probe.

Or could it be that the public are being shafted by a private monopoly. Again.

 

[A1X]

Water supply shouldn’t even be privately owned anyway. It’s a vital service. It’s not even like there’s competition.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Was it the Conservatives that privatised the water companies? If so I guess it weakened the unions.

Was it?

I think you'll find it was.

And gas and oil and coal and steel and electricity and the phones and BA, and British Aerospace.

It's all about creating a smaller state and letting those who know how to run business best (the private companies that bankroll the conservatives) run the businesses. More efficiently, like.

Then claiming the government can't do anything about the cost of living crisis because it has sold off all these formerly nationalized companies that could have raised good income for the treasury. Except the all made a loss when they were nationalized.

But never mind. This is what we voted for. I just wish people would stop moaning about their bills. It's pathetic. Get on your bikes and find a better job!

 

[vegster]

Having recently spoken directly to someone who used to work in the water industry during public ownership, they said that the usual practice of the day was to have short fall outlet sewers running untreated sewage straight into the sea / rivers as the standard practice. they would use screens to try to catch some of it, but they often got clogged / damaged and would be removed allowing it to flow staight out of the sewers into the waterways

So where has this myth that it is a practice that has only been used since privatisation? and everything was rosy when in public hands?

Yes, it used to be bad, all sorts of things bobbing about at low tide at Worthing...eventually there was an outcry. Things got better...the pesky EU started getting serious about discharges and water quality and testing....they introduced the Blue Flag awards and suddenly everyone wanted one for their local beach...something changed....but, we were going to have even BETTER standards outside of the EU ! ...and then we saw it was all a ruse to cut corners, save money for the benefit of shareholders . .

this is just another small piece of a jigsaw of the map of Broken Britain. Our health is failing, our diet getting worse, schools and hospitals are crumbling as are their staff because allegedly, in the 6th biggest economy in the world, we have no money for society anymore. Every day we lose a little bit more of ourselves.

 

[clapham_gull]

So where has this myth that it is a practice that has only been used since privatisation? and everything was rosy when in public hands?

It's another example of under investment under public owner that was thrown to the private wolves whose primary motive is to draw profit and dividends.

A really dumb Thatcher era privatisation that simply turned a public monopoly into a private one. The complete antithesis of capitalism. It just gets the shit show off the books and someone else's problem. The Conservatives couldn't give a flying f### about the water supply as long as doesn't hit them at the election.

The railways not much different.

The "is was just as bad before privatisation" is a false equivalence. You can vote Governments out, you can't do that with these private monopolies.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Do you recall that around 40 years ago many of us (self included) piled in to buy shares in various nationalised industries and then sell them on quickly to make a quick profit. Similarly, did any of you purchase council houses at a good price - wasn't it that position but would have done so had circumstances allowed? ....With the benefit of hindsight......

I only got free shares for the company I worked for, which were compulsory bought about 8 years later in a take over bid. I didn’t agree with privatisation at the time, and saw the customer service standards drop almost immediately.
It was sold to the public as the common people having shares like rich people but very soon, turned into profits for the big companies not dividends for the many.