[Finance] Southern Water over 50% increase in bills

[BN41Albion]

Don't agree to it. Tell them to only put your DD up by the %age that the PRICE has gone up. Especially as you're currently in credit. If they are reluctant, just tell them to bill you twice a year by paper and you'll pay on receipt of the second reminder. I think they'll negotiate the amount of the DD. But if not, just cancel it and let them chase you for it.

It's almost as if they're trying it on. But they wouldn't do that, though, would they!

Thanks - will certainly do that

 

[A mex eyecan]

you can decrease payments on line. I’m £47 in credit, was paying £52.00 they were increasing to £80, roughly 45%. i’ve requested reduction to £70

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Got a delightful surprise from southern water this morning
water bill from the 1st April 2025 to 31st March 2026 £879.40 only a 52% increase from £584.40 this year!
For context
2 people 3 bed house no meter

Thank god I’ve got the football to look forward too

Based upon the average use for a UK household, 142 litres per person a day, that works out about approximately 103,660 litres for that £879.40 or about 0.848 pence per litre

Vast majority of Brits have no idea how much water they use each day | Water UK

Research reveals 46% of people believe their household uses under 20 litres a day A further 17% believe they consume between 20 and 39 litres a day while 15%…

www.water.org.uk

I haven't received a new letter yet, but we are CURRENTLY paying £110/month...
Yes I do, and a family of 6...

So that's about £1320 per year for about 310,980 litres a year (based on 6 people using 142 litres a day) or about 0.4245 pence per litre

Direct debit suddenly going up to £50 from £30 - an increase of 67% ... wtf?? I can't work out how it's such a big increase considering prices haven't gone up by that %. £30/month has covered our usage up to now- we're a little bit in credit??

So that's about £600 per year, and based upon 142 litres used per person on average per day, that would be 51,830 litres or about 0.864 pence per litre.

For that you get that water extracted, treated, pumped to your household and they are delivering some of the highest standard quality drinking water in the world.
They also have to fund investment (including returns to investors who loaned them the money in advance so they were able to invest) - Not sure if that also includes waste water removal and treatment too in that total bill)

For years OFWAT focused on Water quality and low bills, which left little scope to have funds available to spend elsewhere in the business, and OFWAT dictated what they could invest and where too.

Not a surprise that sewerage treatment and discharges into the environment were not a priority for any water company until more recently, but that will take significant investment and more importantly time to deliver solutions, including what earlier posters have mentioned, making sure surface water drains don't mix household sewage waste which goes for treatment and means heavy rain will overwhelm the works and lead to (heavily diluted) discharges of sewage into rivers and seas, but other solutions are needed too

(*the prices worked out per litre above were based on each person using 142 litres a day, (UK Average) but this may not be representative of what they are actually paying per litre, but done for illustrative purposed only making these numbers a rough estimate of cost per litre)

BTW - what do people pay on average for a litre of bottled water nowadays, bet it's significantly more?

 

[birthofanorange]

Delighted to say we've never had a water bill - they sound horrendous.

 

[Bombardier]

Delighted to say we've never had a water bill - they sound horrendous.

Go on, I‘ll bite………..how?

 

[schmunk]

Based upon the average use for a UK household, 142 litres per person a day, that works out about approximately 103,660 litres for that £879.40 or about 0.848 pence per litre

Vast majority of Brits have no idea how much water they use each day | Water UK

Research reveals 46% of people believe their household uses under 20 litres a day A further 17% believe they consume between 20 and 39 litres a day while 15%…

www.water.org.uk

So that's about £1320 per year for about 310,980 litres a year (based on 6 people using 142 litres a day) or about 0.4245 pence per litre

So that's about £600 per year, and based upon 142 litres used per person on average per day, that would be 51,830 litres or about 0.864 pence per litre.

For that you get that water extracted, treated, pumped to your household and they are delivering some of the highest standard quality drinking water in the world.
They also have to fund investment (including returns to investors who loaned them the money in advance so they were able to invest) - Not sure if that also includes waste water removal and treatment too in that total bill)

For years OFWAT focused on Water quality and low bills, which left little scope to have funds available to spend elsewhere in the business, and OFWAT dictated what they could invest and where too.

Not a surprise that sewerage treatment and discharges into the environment were not a priority for any water company until more recently, but that will take significant investment and more importantly time to deliver solutions, including what earlier posters have mentioned, making sure surface water drains don't mix household sewage waste which goes for treatment and means heavy rain will overwhelm the works and lead to (heavily diluted) discharges of sewage into rivers and seas, but other solutions are needed too

(*the prices worked out per litre above were based on each person using 142 litres a day, (UK Average) but this may not be representative of what they are actually paying per litre, but done for illustrative purposed only making these numbers a rough estimate of cost per litre)

BTW - what do people pay on average for a litre of bottled water nowadays, bet it's significantly more?

Not entirely sure what you're wittering on about, but Southern Water last year charged a combined £4.42 per cubic metre of water for supply and drainage, excluding standing charges.

This year they're charging £6.54 for the same service. That's why people are angry / concerned.

 

[birthofanorange]

Go on, I‘ll bite………..how?

Old building, commercial premises below who used to own the building but when they sold off the four flats above discovered it would be far more costly trying to put in new pipes, so left it as it was.
Never had a meter, lived here nearly 40 years and owned it for 20.

 

[Birdie Boy]

Because of this thread, I checked ours, my wife deals with all bills. They have upped ours from £34 pm to £45 and then to £57 in the last year! They estimate we use £1.21 per day (254L per day) with a household of 5 and about to go to 3, so will go down. Last years bill was £419, so why do they need £684? I am in credit for £448. I am presuming that we pay monthly and they take the yearly amount out on July 1st, so we are covered. It's just the unnecessary increase per month. Also, how do they know what waste water we use?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I mean, I water my garden quite a lot at the moment and drop turds the size of which probably means they likely have to employ a dozen navvies with axes to break up, so i'm not the one who should be most outraged by these price increases.

However, i'll add my voices to this saying politicians have royally f***** up over the last 30 years to allow privatisation then allow OFWAT to bend over and have their tummies tickled.

I as a consumer consent to the price increases, through gritted teeth as long as there is a proper plan to sort out the state of the rivers and seas and as long as there is absolutely no more directors and shareholders treating this as trough time

 

[Official Old Man]

I recieved a letter from South East water offering me 227 litre water butt for £30 so took up the offer, I've already got one that collects from one roof. Put the new one under a roof over a double garage and it was full very quickly and is used to water the garden.

Save Water Save Money Surprisingly easy

Save Water Save Money has delivered 2.75 million water saving devices to more than 1 million customers, saving over 51 billion litres of water

www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Not entirely sure what you're wittering on about, but Southern Water last year charged a combined £4.42 per cubic metre of water for supply and drainage, excluding standing charges.

This year they're charging £6.54 for the same service. That's why people are angry / concerned.

It was how cheap water is to a consumer

A cubic metre of water is 1,000 litres so last year they charged you £4.42 which works out at just 0.042 pence a litre
This year they are charging you £6.54 which is just 0.0654 pence per litre - an increase of less than 0.024 pence a litre.

It may have increased a lot in terms of a percentage increase but OFWAT prioiritised low bills to customers for the majority of the 30 years they have overseen the water industry rather than allowing water companies to be able to charge a bit more and to be able to fund much needed investment in their infrastructure, limiting their ability to make improvements in all areas, rather than a narrow focus they did, which was led by OFWAT (drinking water quality and low bills, but not sewage treatment and spill prevention) and they probably kept them artificially low so a price comparison over the 30 years with inflation taken into account may be useful to see how they tracked against inflation over those years.

In recent years we have had many drivers for higher prices, so higher interest rates affecting the cost of borrowing (and of the servicing of existing debt) Higher electricity prices (cost to extract, treat and pump water and waste through their networks) Staffing costs, the cost of living crisis would have led to higher % wage increases to staff, (as happened at most employers throughout the country, driven by inflationary pressures staff would have felt)

There would have been more properties being built in the region, which needs new infrastructure built, or existing infrastructure expanded to cope with the extra demand (both drinking water production and waste water treatment) and there would have been a shift in focus to deliver investment to improve wastewater treatment (probably paid for through re-direction of funds from other areas which also are requiring investment, additional funding from owners / investors, which require a return on that investment, etc) Keeping bills artificially low for a number of years would have hampered the opportunity to deliver those improvements

 

[schmunk]

It was how cheap water is to a consumer

A cubic metre of water is 1,000 litres so last year they charged you £4.42 which works out at just 0.042 pence a litre
This year they are charging you £6.54 which is just 0.0654 pence per litre - an increase of less than 0.024 pence a litre.

It may have increased a lot in terms of a percentage increase but OFWAT prioiritised low bills to customers for the majority of the 30 years they have overseen the water industry rather than allowing water companies to be able to charge a bit more and to be able to fund much needed investment in their infrastructure, limiting their ability to make improvements in all areas, rather than a narrow focus they did, which was led by OFWAT (drinking water quality and low bills, but not sewage treatment and spill prevention) and they probably kept them artificially low so a price comparison over the 30 years with inflation taken into account may be useful to see how they tracked against inflation over those years.

In recent years we have had many drivers for higher prices, so higher interest rates affecting the cost of borrowing (and of the servicing of existing debt) Higher electricity prices (cost to extract, treat and pump water and waste through their networks) Staffing costs, the cost of living crisis would have led to higher % wage increases to staff, (as happened at most employers throughout the country, driven by inflationary pressures staff would have felt)

There would have been more properties being built in the region, which needs new infrastructure built, or existing infrastructure expanded to cope with the extra demand (both drinking water production and waste water treatment) and there would have been a shift in focus to deliver investment to improve wastewater treatment (probably paid for through re-direction of funds from other areas which also are requiring investment, additional funding from owners / investors, which require a return on that investment, etc) Keeping bills artificially low for a number of years would have hampered the opportunity to deliver those improvements

OK Boomer.

 

[Cordwainer]

Imo all new builds should be subject to water saving measures (of course house builders will kick up). It’s ludicrous that we use potable water to flush our loos. It’s also ludicrous how water companies such as SWS use their CSO’s willy nilly, at great cost to our rivers and inshore marine environments.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

OK Boomer.

Nope, not even close - try again

I point out how ridiculously cheap water delivered straight to you home is, per litre, even after the big price increase and that's the best you can come up with to counter it ?

 

[chip]

I take part in FreshWater Watch, you can see how crap the quality of water is here: https://www.freshwaterwatch.org/

I pay ~£150 per year for unmetered water from Portsmouth Water. That's OK. I pay Southern Water around 3 times more for drainage and they leave the local chalk stream and Chi harbour polluted, w&nkers

 

[Cordwainer]

And of course this sort of thing;

Southern Water fined record £90m for deliberately pouring sewage into sea

Privatised firm dumped billions of litres of raw sewage off north Kent and Hampshire coasts to avoid costs and penalties

www.theguardian.com

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I take part in FreshWater Watch, you can see how crap the quality of water is here: https://www.freshwaterwatch.org/

I pay ~£150 per year for unmetered water from Portsmouth Water. That's OK. I pay Southern Water around 3 times more for drainage and they leave the local chalk stream and Chi harbour polluted, w&nkers

View attachment 200916

How do you differentiate between water that has been treated by a sewage company and returned to the waterways, and water that has been polluted and entered the waterways from things like run off from farmers fields (pesticides, fertilisers, etc - Nitrates and phosphates are commonly from agricultural use) or from private sewers, that don't go for treatment by water companies and so on ?

The public perception is that all pollution found in water entering the rivers has come from treatment works and spills by water companies, but the truth is often from from that.

Rules for farmers and land managers to prevent water pollution

What you must do to manage manure, fertiliser and soil to prevent runoff, erosion and leaching.

www.gov.uk

 

[Mr Bridger]

The rateable value needs to go for a start and compulsory metering introduced.

 

[chip]

How do you differentiate between water that has been treated by a sewage company and returned to the waterways, and water that has been polluted and entered the waterways from things like run off from farmers fields (pesticides, fertilisers, etc - Nitrates and phosphates are commonly from agricultural use) or from private sewers, that don't go for treatment by water companies and so on ?

The public perception is that all pollution found in water entering the rivers has come from treatment works and spills by water companies, but the truth is often from from that.

Rules for farmers and land managers to prevent water pollution

What you must do to manage manure, fertiliser and soil to prevent runoff, erosion and leaching.

www.gov.uk

I understand that, maybe this helps

 

[Birdie Boy]

BTW - what do people pay on average for a litre of bottled water nowadays, bet it's significantly more?

35p 1.5L in Saudi. Can't wait to get back to rip off Britain!