We’ve all got to pay up for the sewage scandal
After water bosses’ grovelling apology, now bills set to soar
PLANS for water companies to force customers to pay for a £10billion scheme to end the sewage scandal triggered outrage yesterday.
Water firms have doled out huge pay and bonuses to their chief executives, mountains of cash to shareholders and piled up debt – while at the same time tipping millions of tons of raw sewage into rivers.
But industry body Water UK admitted consumers will have to pay to upgrade pipes to stop sewage overflowing into rivers when it rains. One firm estimated bills could rise by 10-12 per cent by the end of the decade – adding around £50 a year to the average charge.
Water UK chief Ruth Kelly issued a grovelling apology this week for failing to tackle sewage polluting rivers for decades. Yesterday the former Labour Cabinet minister told Radio 4: ‘We’ll be asking all water company shareholders to put down a multi-billion-pound down payment to start fixing our victorian sewage system. We recognise there may be upward pressure on customer bills.’
A Water UK spokesman said bills would rise ‘by modest increments’ determined by regulator Ofwat, adding it ‘is clear huge investment is needed, and the only sustainable way of funding that is bills’.
Musician- turned- water campaigner Feargal Sharkey said: ‘We should have an apology for the suggestion they are going to put bills up for their incompetence and greed.’
Gary Carter, of the GMB union which represents water staff, said householders should not pay for ‘years of cock-ups’, adding: ‘england’s waterways are in crisis and the companies’ solution is the public should pay. That’s outrageous.’
A Downing Street spokesman said the upgrades should not be ‘disproportionately affecting bills’.
Yesterday a fifth water company boss said he would not accept his bonus in the light of the sewage scandal. Laurence Gosden, who runs Southern Water, said it had ‘clearly not met the wider expectations of our customers’. His predecessor, Ian McAulay, received a bonus of £550,900.
Water UK said its scheme would reduce sewage spills from 403,171 in 2020 to 263,171 by 2030. Financial Times analysis estimates water firms paid shareholders £1.4billion in dividends last year.