£120m penalty for water giant

BRITAIN’s biggest water company was yesterday ordered to pay a record penalty of £1 0million over shocking failures to tackle leaks.

Thames Water will pay the money back to customers in the form of a rebate on bills. But it will be worth just £15 per household and staged over two years.

The company’s pipes were leaking a staggering 149million gallons a day in

016-17: enough to fill more than 70 Olympic-size swimming pools or supply 1.5million households. It had been set a target for leaks of 138billion gallons a day by industry regulator Ofwat, which has imposed the penalty.

Thames Water also admitted leakage levels were likely to be above the targets for both 017/18 and 018/19.

The penalty is a damning indictment of a company which has a history of failure dating back to the early 000s. It faces a further investigation and fines after thousands of homes in the South East were left without water for days following pipe bursts caused by the ‘Beast from the East’ earlier this year.

Thames Water and the other privatised water firms have been accused of siphoning off billions to mostly foreign shareholders while not tackling leaks.

Ofwat chief executive Rachel Fletcher said: ‘The measures we’ve announced illustrate the scale of the company’s shortcomings.

‘A well-run water company will be able to reduce leakage over time.’

Thames Water’s chief executive Steve Robertson said: ‘We let our customers down and we’re sorry. We are investing in people and resources to tackle leakage.’