Soldato
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i am in danger of sounding thick - and possibly derailing but................ how do they meter our waste?
plan for collapse of Thames Water
- Thread starter Mrwong
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Man of Honour
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It’s just a percentage of our water usage. A statistical calculation to cover the cost I guess.
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Interesting. Never knew it was so high.
Just rechecked my bills, and according to last 182 days ( 6 Aug - 3 Feb 2025), I'm paying more for waste that fresh water on Thames!
I just checked:Interesting. Never knew it was so high.
Just rechecked my bills, and according to last 182 days ( 6 Aug - 3 Feb 2025), I'm paying more for waste that fresh water on Thames!
Water is 209.54/m3 and 10.13p/day
Waste is 214.38/m3 and 28.21p/day
Waste is charged at 90% of water use.
So yeh, I pay more for waste than water but that’s largely due to the standing charge being nearly 3X the water standing charge. The usage charges are about the same.
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Same with us in Wales.Interesting. Never knew it was so high.
Just rechecked my bills, and according to last 182 days ( 6 Aug - 3 Feb 2025), I'm paying more for waste that fresh water on Thames!
Who knew?
Coincidentally.. Also. Used 34m3
Our bill is much more than yours... Despite being not for profit.
Our waste water charge is more than 2x yours.
Look at our enormous price increase!
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Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2005
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- Birmingham
Sewerage service charges I think include highway drainage which is a fixed contribution to highway runoff into sewers. It's itemised on my bill (Severn Trent) but doesn't seem to be itemised on your examples.
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Waterway pollution up 60% compared to last year.
www.theguardian.com
www.bbc.co.uk
Thames, Southern and Yorkshire account for the majority of those incidents.
Being a sad man that I am, I did watch the committee earlier this week with Thames, which included the CEOs request to be let off or have the fining system modified to allow for the improvements.
Cue, every other water company wanting the same thing. You might entertain such an idea if the providers had shown historical improvements but the situation continues to get worse year after year. Hohum.
Serious pollution incidents by English water companies rose 60% last year
Environment Agency records 75 serious incidents among total of 2,800, with Thames Water being worst offender
www.theguardian.com
Serious water pollution in England up 60%, government says
Last year had the highest number of pollution events by water companies ever recorded.
www.bbc.co.uk
Thames, Southern and Yorkshire account for the majority of those incidents.
Being a sad man that I am, I did watch the committee earlier this week with Thames, which included the CEOs request to be let off or have the fining system modified to allow for the improvements.
Cue, every other water company wanting the same thing. You might entertain such an idea if the providers had shown historical improvements but the situation continues to get worse year after year. Hohum.
Soldato
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- 11 Sep 2013
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Stop blocking the sewers, then...
So three of the largest companies with some of the most assets, widest areas and highest volumes of monitoring are (self) reporting the highest number of incidents... What a coincidence
I wonder why there are no improvements......?
"The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs used water company fines to create an £11m fund for environmental improvements in 2024, but has not yet distributed the money"
Looks like foreign investors aren't the only ones bleeding money out of the water industry.
Agree, people are thick and seemingly getting thicker.
Yet, year on year, the incidents are increasing. If the response to that is "Well, we are now monitoring more, so dur, yeah instances have increased". I do not have coherent response to that. Incredulous.
How long can this reasoning continue for? If this is so obvious, then what gives?
Soldato
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You'd be surprised. The worst we ever found was an entire double matress that someone had cut up and stuffed down a 6" sewer pipe.
There's been a massive and steady increase since around 2019, with supposedly-flushable wet wipes that clearly didn't pass accreditation as we're yoinking them all out at the blockage points. As mentioned above, the treatment works inlet screens have to be cleaned every two hours now, instead of once or twice a week.
There are a few hydraulic issues with surface water run-off, idiots building on flood plains against all advice, and impacts from certain farming practices, but they're a bit beyond my area of specialty.
Other contributing factors are overconnection or misconnections, be they property developers or highways authorities, and the number of people paving driveways without proper drainage.
Various things combine to overload the the system beyond its design capacity... but sewer blockages remain by far the biggest culprit.
Until all the money has been spent on fines and dividends, and there's no service left?
It's a bit like how Abbey National used to charge you for being overdrawn, and then charge you for not having enough money in your account to pay the charges.
Perhaps household toilets or the waste systems need to be modified with a filter mechanism to only allow valid waste, so the household systems block instead of it entering the sewage system. I don't know.
Soldato
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You could have an AI camera that detects whether what you've flushed is a poo or not and opens a flap?
Heh. Perhaps not.
Various news articles today suggest that Ofwat is to be abolished on Monday, with a new water regulator being created. I am not entirely sure of the reasoning behind this approach compared to simply restructuring the existing organisation or framework of governance. It also seems like a somewhat knee-jerk reaction unless these changes also aim to modify the relationships and strategies of the currently competing EA and Defra bodies.
Soldato
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- Birmingham
Not quite, the final Cunliffe report is published Monday then there is likely to be a consultation from government on what to do with Ofwat. So won't happen overnight.
Soldato
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I think they've had something like this for decades in Japan. ISTR newpapers reporting how Michael Jackson bought one when he went all veggie/vegan/pescatarian/fruitarian/batpoo-crazy...
But yeah, replacing OFWAT with something sensible would be a stunning idea. It always irked me that everyone else was screaming for investment, only for them to tell the industry we weren't allowed to...
Here is the rub, people are all in favour of invesmtnet until it hits their bill as we've seen over the last few months...
The same goes with everything else, 'we want a better NHS', 'no problem, I'll need to add in 3% to income tax to achive that', 'no thanks, I'm fine'.
The same goes with everything else, 'we want a better NHS', 'no problem, I'll need to add in 3% to income tax to achive that', 'no thanks, I'm fine'.
I am not entirely convinced. Most reasonable people acknowledge that costs increase over time. The rub, as you put it, lies in the fact that many people are unwilling to pay more for a service yet receive less in return. In some cases, the service fails to improve or even deteriorates significantly.
Various legitimate, known malfeasance and skulduggery is already known in the water sector areas.
However, when viewed through the customer's lens, it is reasonable to expect that water companies have been making necessary investments and improvements to the water networks. From the customer's perspective, there is a valid concern: if the government and other entities are now highlighting that our sewage systems are outdated and require urgent investment, what have the privatised companies been doing over the past 35 years? Again, just seen through the customer.
That’s all fine until you realise the government regulators have actively prevented water companies from investing in infrastructure because they have prioritised lower bills for consumers.
It’s a practical reality that the amount people have been paying for water over the last 30+ years hasn’t been sustainable let alone anything like the amount needed to make the required investments to make the improvements ‘the customer’ expects.
When water companies finally get Ofwatt to agree to increase the amount of investment allowed (following a lot of public pressure), the very same customer kicks off because the additional costs gets added to their bill.
How do you square that circle.
I think what we can conclude is that this is something you can add onto the list that passed generations have kicked the can and costs for future generations to pick up.
It’s a practical reality that the amount people have been paying for water over the last 30+ years hasn’t been sustainable let alone anything like the amount needed to make the required investments to make the improvements ‘the customer’ expects.
When water companies finally get Ofwatt to agree to increase the amount of investment allowed (following a lot of public pressure), the very same customer kicks off because the additional costs gets added to their bill.
How do you square that circle.
I think what we can conclude is that this is something you can add onto the list that passed generations have kicked the can and costs for future generations to pick up.
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