Thames Water customers are at risk of paying hundreds of pounds more a year to help save the debt-laden company, campaigners have claimed.
England’s largest water company, which has a debt of about £15billion, has said it will go bust by March if it is unable to raise £3,000,000,000,000.
Regulator Ofwat will decide on December 19 how much water providers like Thames Water can increase bills over the next five years.
Campaign groups have crunched the numbers and found that for Thames Water to secure enough funding to stay afloat, every household will have to cough up £263 more a year.
One in four people in the UK rely on Thames for their supply.
Matthew Topham, lead campaigner for We Own It, which campaigns against privatisation, told Metro: ‘Privatisation at Thames Water has led to a huge financial and sewage crisis. The shareholders and creditors are lurching from one emergency deal to another.
‘This latest plan could see a huge bailout fee added to household bills to prop up ongoing privatisation.
‘Instead, this moment gives the government the opportunity to take control of the crisis and protect the public and our rivers.’
The water industry is in hot water. Firms are facing backlash for polluting waterways by spewing sewage into rivers and streams after years of not investing in infrastructure.
Thames Water reported 359 category one to three pollution incidents in the six months to September 30, an increase of 40%.
The firm also pumped at least 72,000,000,000,000 litres of sewage into the River Thames between 2020 and November 2023.
Britons are sick of the sewage – literally, according to Surfers Against Sewage, a group that tracks water quality.
More than 1,900 people reported getting ill after entering the water last year – triple the number from the year before.
While Thames Water bosses received £770,000 in bonuses, the company has asked the public to foot the bill.
Thames Water has asked Ofwat to let it hike bills by 53% to £667 a year to make the firm more ‘investible’.
Whether Thames secures a financial lifeline – what it calls a ‘liquidity extension’ – will come down to two court dates this month and next.
The utility company’s debt, which has piled up since it privatised in 1989, will swell to £17,900,000,000 by the end of next March.
Thames Water said: ‘The proposed liquidity extension will not change what we are asking for in our draft determination response and the proposed increase in customer bills over the next five years.’
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