plan for collapse of Thames Water

b0rn2sk8 said:
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.
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I agree and I'm not trying to argue against that backdrop. Just the notion, that customers would be unwilling to pay more for water or any other service.

The water situation is particularly unique due to all the malfeasance involved. It is important to remember that the customer has had zero control over these matters, whether political or otherwise. This lack of control makes it an extremely difficult pill to swallow, especially given the absence of voice and understanding regarding the events of the past few decades.

Despite this, the customer is now being told to pay more, while the same old platitudes, such as "it will get worse before it gets better", continue to be repeated
 
darkgen said:
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.
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Is that a serious suggestion? Did you not see what happened when someone suggested that ideally, people should be provided with GP, dentist, school and public transport within 15 mins of where they live?
 
shroomz said:
Is that a serious suggestion? Did you not see what happened when someone suggested that ideally, people should be provided with GP, dentist, school and public transport within 15 mins of where they live?
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It was mostly tongue in cheek. Nevermind all that other stuff, at my age I need to be within 15m of a working bog!
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
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.
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Several reasons.

Things like the timing of these price rises of 30-40-50% have coincided with a huge cost of living crisis for many people, they simply cant afford it, the fact 10s of billions has been paid out in dividends since privatisation, that money should have been used to invest in the infrastructure again a perfectly reasonable view to take. Thatchers legacy is coming home to hit us on all fronts now from housing to water and everything in between.

The only people still defending water privatisation are those who work within the industry aka vested interests.
 
200sols said:
Thatchers legacy is coming home to hit us on all fronts now from housing to water and everything in between.
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Why does everyone keep blaming Thatcher for this, when it was what Wilson and Callaghan did (or rather didn't) that led to privatisation being necessary?

200sols said:
The only people still defending water privatisation are those who work within the industry aka vested interests.
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We don't give a **** which way it's run so long as we're paid, and it gets run and regulated the way it was supposed to.
The ideal would be public ownership private operation.
 
I got my bill through. 6 month one, which amounted to 59% increase in that period which somehow equates to them asking for 100% more a month.

I’ve tried choosing to update my direct debit to see what my options are and it comes back with a ‘Sorry, we’re unable to update your payment plan’. Funnily enough the ‘make additional payments’ option works perfectly.

I’ve called them and you get the usual call centres who can’t understand why you want your bill lowered to something resembling what they said in the news the increase % would be. 100% is a joke.

Absolute criminals, especially off the back of the news about them using rescue payments to pay directors bonuses etc and how £80b has been peed away on those sorts of things rather than infrastructure.

I didn’t think it was possible to topple British Gas, Sky and VM for awful companies, but here we are.
 
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Tram said:
91% is still pretty high amount of water, I don't think there should be any hosepipe ban, untill say 75% or so level. Bans should be based on Reservoir level not because it is summer.
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It's based on rates of use and replenishment, not current level.
It might well be full today, but in hot weather that can drop dramatically within a single day, and even more so during heatwaves. Conversely, it can take weeks for the levels to return, especially if there's not been enough rain over a sustained period.
 
I love the idea that we cannot let anything that pension funds have invested in fail. Thats definitely not an open invitation for large publicly traded companies to take the **** knowing that they are untouchable once peoples pension funds might drop 0.3%.
 
Ouch, Just checked my billing period for Thames and they've increase my DD by 93%, even though for the previous billing period the existing DD covered the cost. Now I need to play the how the fudge do you contact them to lower the DD amount!

e: Pretty painful exercise. First caller was unable to do anything and sent me to "collections", who also seemed incapable of doing what I wanted. Had to cancel existing DD contract and then create as new one, although I'm still not convinced it has been set up at the amount I stated. We'll see.
 
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darkgen said:
Ouch, Just checked my billing period for Thames and they've increase my DD by 93%, even though for the previous billing period the existing DD covered the cost. Now I need to play the how the fudge do you contact them to lower the DD amount!
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If you are late on a payment or don't pay they contact you quite regularly :D
 
SupraWez said:
If you are late on a payment or don't pay they contact you quite regularly :D
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Aye. the "collections" girl started telling me I'm not on any payment plan and going off about arrears and credit impacts. I politely told her to view my previous transactions, all via DD for years on end. She then got confused but conceded I had not missed any payments and it was unclear why my new DD had increased so dramatically. As above, the computer said no to adjusting it, so had to create a new DD. What a joke!
 
darkgen said:
Aye. the "collections" girl started telling me I'm not on any payment plan and going off about arrears and credit impacts. I politely told her to view my previous transactions, all via DD for years on end. She then got confused but conceded I had not missed any payments and it was unclear why my new DD had increased so dramatically. As above, the computer said no to adjusting it, so had to create a new DD. What a joke!
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A joke, but possibly a deliberate one. How many will just pay up whilst grumbling to themselves about 'the cost of living'?
 
Uther said:
A joke, but possibly a deliberate one. How many will just pay up whilst grumbling to themselves about 'the cost of living'?
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Well aye. I was expecting up a 40% hike but 93%. No chance. Screw having my money earning interest sitting in Thames' bank accounts.
 
Tram said:
www.oxfordmail.co.uk

Thames Water can issue fines of up to £1,000 from tomorrow

Oxfordshire residents will not be allowed to use a hosepipe from tomorrow as Thames Water’s ban comes into effect.
www.oxfordmail.co.uk www.oxfordmail.co.uk

91% is still pretty high amount of water, I don't think there should be any hosepipe ban, untill say 75% or so level. Bans should be based on Reservoir level not because it is summer.
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Other regions are far lower see Yorkshire ,so best not to deplete everything.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyx179pvgno

How much longer are they going to keep the life support machine on for this vaccuous money pit? £20 billion in the red and only just returning to profit after hiking customer bills 40%.

Thames Water are the very definition of sunk cost fallacy, they should have gone to the wall 2 if not 3 years ago instead of being allowed to rack up unfathomable amounts of debt. Alas they're owned predominately by overseas pension and hedge funds so the government are probably desperate to avoid an international incident.

The blast radius from TW going under is going to be massive.
 
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