Thames Water nearing the cliff edge.

JohnD

JohnD

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No surprise.

"The water company — which is owned by a clutch of investors, including pension funds Omers and USS, and the Abu Dhabi and Chinese sovereign wealth funds — is in last-ditch talks with Ofwat and government to avert a crisis, which would see Thames Water brought under the government’s special administration regime, a temporary renationalisation.

Thames Water has come under increasing financial strain as higher interest rates make servicing its £18bn debt pile more expensive. Investors have agreed to inject £3.25bn of equity into the company over the next five years but they are seeking significant concessions from Ofwat before doing so.

These include steep increases to water bills, as well as caps on fines for sewage pollution, in an attempt to free up cash to turn around the business.

Investors have also asked to be allowed to continue to receive dividends in order to pay external debt after the regulator announced a crackdown on payouts across the industry. Ofwat is already probing a £37.5mn payout by Thames Water to its parent company, Kemble, in October, despite environmental failures."

FT.com
 
It's about time Private companies in charge of public services are subject to the same penalties for failing to maintain standards at the publics expense. **** shareholders. The Bentham Principle should apply: “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong”.
 
JohnD said:
No surprise.

"The water company — which is owned by a clutch of investors
Click to expand...
I take it you’re not one of them then? Care to let us know which companies you do actually invest in when you get your 40% investment growth from so that we can check their ethics out?


Didn’t think so.
 
Sewage has been discharged from The Chesham Sewage Treatment Works into the River Chess since 6:45am on February 29, totalling nearly 500 hours of pumping, according to Thames Water’s Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) map. Paul Jennings, chair of the River Chess Association, said many residents have “complained of bad smells” in the area, with the river’s water quality “getting worse day by day”.

Bucksfreepress.co.uk

Hard to see which is worse: Thames water making the country sink, or Tory policies making the country stink.
 
TW was attractive to investors because of its debt and the opportunities that created for making money short term. There’s something inherently wrong about a public service provider being treated as, and only as, a vessel for profit
 
Notch7 said:
Ah yes, otherwise known as the Conservative Party.

Sunak is busy trying to get the Indian trade deal done before he leaves.
Click to expand...
Should we doing a trade deal with a country that actively supports pootins invasion and appears to supply mercenaries
 
"The number of raw sewage discharges into rivers and seas in England and Wales hit an all-time record in 2023, according to official figures that sparked calls for Rishi Sunak’s government to declare a national emergency.

Some 464,056 spills were recorded in 2023, up 54 per cent from 301,091 the year before, the Environment Agency said on Wednesday. That was the highest since data collection began in 2015, when monitors started to be installed.

Sites in some parts of England and Wales were spilling almost every day of the year, according to data from the environmental regulator.

The sharp rise in discharges reflects an increase in monitoring of the 14,318 storm overflow pipes, which are designed to release untreated sewage and storm water into coastal waters and rivers when it rains to prevent flooding."

FT.com
 
It’s a cliff edge that will get further away with each day that passes. No confidence that a change of government will make a jot of difference. I remember being lectured to by the proponents of privatisation that private capital would be incentivised to invest in improving water quality and reducing leaks. Exactly the same percentage of leaks 35 years on
 
"Just 16 per cent of waterways in England and Wales meet minimum EU standards and none meet the standards for chemicals, according to separate Environment Agency data."
 
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