water bills exorbitant rises

JamesandJon33

We had a water meter installed last year. Our monthly bill went from £88 to £33. Everyone should have one.

Our bill went from £72 pm to just over £10 pm. Even now, with the increase it will only be 1/3 of the non metered price we were paying.
BUT
I wonder if this reduction in payments due to meters is partly responsible for the shortfall of money for water companies.

Yes, that's quite possible, Mollygo. The water companies may have preferred it when a fair number of us were overpaying!

Barleyfields

Putting water into public ownership would be prohibitively expensive. The cost of acquiring shares in all the water companies, and taking on their debt, would be phenomenal.

Sadly, I agree. I don’t believe water and energy should be privately owned

Poppyred

Get a water meter…..simples.

Not for us! We have a large household, 5 bedrooms, 6 adults, 4 dogs. Washing machine and showers alone (no bath, two showers and loos) would push us up on a water meter.

When my husband was alive our water bill was £500.00. When he died 2008 I decided to try the water meter. My bill for one year £190.00. I live alone but don't stint on the water, use a water butt for the garden, no baths, shower daily dishwasher and washing machine, two lavatories. My monthly payment for this year will be £21.00.

I'm sorry I know this is sidestepping a bit, but it's definitely water related. The road in which my daughter lives was without water for 3 days due to work being done by Southern Water -it should have been a day.

She went outside on Day 3 and asked one of the workmen if they knew when it was coming back on and he said in the next hour - and indeed, 40 minutes later it came back on - 10 minutes later one of the workman knocked on her door and asked if she could boil a kettle for him to make his Pot Noodle.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she told me!

I wouldn't give them a penny in compensation. The water companies should just be taken into public ownership - they should never have been privatised. The CEOs and shareholders have had enough money from the British public, and have rewarded us with sewage in our rivers and on our beaches. Enough is enough!

Sorry, that won’t work! If you are acquiring a company you have to buy its shares and take on its debts.

I understood that if a company becomes formally insolvent, shareholders are not paid.

Not to hijack the thread, but our council is one of the ones who have got permission from govt to increase our council tax bills by 10% instead of the maximum 4.99% .I think there will be riots if this increase in the cost of living continues, it's unsustainable .

Privatising water was thatcher’s shabbiest moment. Can’t change supplier. We need it to live. A vital service sold, no care for people or environment. Shareholders and CEOs serviced first. Vile.

tanith

I agree about a water meter my bills went from £47pm to £14pm when i had a meter fitted.

The same happened to us 10 years ago down in Hampshire - a meter was fitted and our water bill fell dramatically. However when we retired to the coast in Lancashire our bill (on a meter) rose significantly and we're being told it's going even higher in order to pay the shareholders' dividends while they keep pouring untreated sewage into the sea. It's appalling.

Doesn't seem right that the public have to pay for the water industry's bad management. Does this increase also mean that the shareholders won't be getting any dividends this year I wonder? Perhaps they should use past dividends to pay for all the work needed to sort out this.

When we moved here as a family of 4 in a 4 bedroom house we chose to have a water meter fitted and still saved. Now I'm here alone I obviously benefit even more. I'm frugal with the use of all my utilities in order to survive on my low income, but water usage varies so much between families. At our previous home we had a leak when the house was newly built. When it was eventually sorted the builders had to pay for the losses so we had to send 2 consecutive readings from our meter so they could calculate the wasted water and repay us. The meter was next to our next door neighbours one in the pavement so - out of pure curiosity - I read both meters each time. It turned out next door used vastly more water than we did - about 3 times as much! They did have one more child but I was still shocked. As a result I knew we must be relatively low users so made the choice to have a meter fitted when we moved next to a much older house. At least with a meter you know you are only paying for your own usage, not the average of everyone who may waste vast quantities. However if more people move over to meters the overall costs will not fall for the water companies, so if metered households pay less, bills will rise for everyone to continue to cover all the costs.
The OP's bills seem enormous to me. I pay a bill twice a year and the one I paid last week was £82.67 so approximately £166 per year! As I understand it you can choose to have a meter and if you then find you are worse off you can go back to the charge based on the size/value of your home. Personally I think everyone should be metered. It is the fairest way to pay and if one is wasteful with usage you pay accordingly. I don't want to pay for someone else to wash their car regularly or water their garden constantly to have a pristine lawn in the height of summer.
When my brother and his family moved into a brand new home with a meter, long before us, I was shocked that they followed the mantra 'If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down' but now I do exactly that myself! Now it is being publicly recommended by Martin Lewis on his money programme!

I pay £19 a month but I dread what I will be paying monthly next year. I appear to wash clothes for my local area!

We have had Smart Water Meters fitted recently in our area, no choice, just replaced the old ones.

Several people on Facebook reckon they seem to be using water even when they’re not!

Will keep a close eye on ours.

I think everyone should have a water meter. We all pay for whatever gas, electric, oil we use, why should water be any different?

I wish I could believe that public ownership is the answer. However dh worked for a while in the water sector, and soon realised that during decades of the nationalised era, under-investment in the infrastructure had been rife.

And it’s always just as well to remember that it’s not just water we’re paying for, it’s also sewage. At the moment, not far from us in outer SW London, there are huge works still going on after several weeks, and causing major disruption, to sewage infrastructure. Every time we drive anywhere near, dh is mentally totting up the many, many millions it must be costing in manpower and plant, esp. the huge tanker-type vehicles that are removing all the waste water/sewage while they fix the problem.

What is this answer then? Higher and higher bills for the repair work and more and more bonus' for the shareholders?

Everything has gone up even the TV licence when are labour going to make any good decisions If they think they needed a wage increase can't they see atall

We need to get one installed, our bill is £83 per month now. I don’t waste water, I turn off the tap whilst brushing my teeth & don’t flush to loo in the night for wees, unless we are both awake (saniflo).
I do think once everyone is on one they will what they like.

Our car wash has gone up from £5 to £8, plus tip. Will do my own from now on.

Installing two water butts means my garden is adequately watered and for free. I guess the gathered water can be used to wash a car too?

I have lived in properties with water meters for some years and the savings are phenomenal. It does actually make you think twice about water usage too.

My water is with Severn Trent. The latest bill, with the increase, is £548. A rise of £90 from last year. I'm certainly going to think about a water meter.

All whilst they pour millions upon millions of sewage into our seas and waterways every year.