Thames Water…angry

nanna8

What a shame. I have fond memories of fishing in the Thames with my Dad, somewhere around Richmond. It would have been in the 1950s. He used to catch fish and then carefully put them back. Happy days.

That is a lovely memory. Introducing more fish into the Thames is part of the biological method used to clean it up. There is still hope. It is a British responsibility and a British pride so it is awful to think the water is being managed outside of the country. There should have been laws in place that stopped foreign ownership.

Sewage aside, it seems Thames Water will run out of money in 2025 and absent a private investor will have to be taken into special measures.

What a shame. I have fond memories of fishing in the Thames with my Dad, somewhere around Richmond. It would have been in the 1950s. He used to catch fish and then carefully put them back. Happy days.

The Thames was branded as "biologically dead". With new leadership from 1967 - 1980 and proper engineering investments, it was transformed into one of the cleanest rivers in the world. Now, all of that effort has been reversed and the utility is in financial shambles and filth.

Shouldn't we berate Ofwat! Here's an extract from "Thames Water Our Regulators":-
The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat)..... main duties include protecting the interests of consumers and securing the "long-term resilience" of water supply and wastewater systems. They ensure water companies finance and conduct their functions effectively.
Ofwat is financed by licence fees that are recovered from the water companies. .... accountable to Parliament for the money spent.

How many times has this been explained? 🙄

If the government nationalises Thames Water won't that mean shareholders have lost their investment? If a shop goes bankrupt shareholders are last in the queue. IMHO essential utilities should be government owned.

OK they may have factors like population increase which make it difficult to be profitable, but that doesn't alter the fact that it's plain wrong to pay 150 million in dividends & a million-plus package for the CEO when they have billions of unsustainable debt.

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t know where you get the idea that shareholders would be pursued for money SueDoku.

Cash-strapped Thames Water has been struggling to secure fresh funds from existing shareholders after they withdrew promised investment of £500m amid a funding row with the industry regulator.

Shareholders have so far refused additional funds, blaming regulator Ofwat's framework.

Above taken from a Sky News report today

As a Thames Water customer I once signed up to answer surveys about their plans for future investment etc. They paid very well! There haven't been any paid surveys for some time and I still find it astonishing that the little information I gave in my opinions could be worth so much! However they don't seem to have carried out the plans they were talking about which I was hoping they would. Perhaps the other participants advised them not to spend money on improvements and give it all to the shareholders! Another way they seem to have thrown their money away!

Spot on. Much upgrading is needed.

Influx of people, more water needed and much more waste to purify. It is about a lot more than re-nationalisation

Public Services should never have been sold off in the first place. Rilways, bus services, energy, wate, public housing have all gone to pot since they were sold off.

I don’t know where you get the idea that shareholders would be pursued for money SueDoku.

Maybe my memory is faulty, but I am fairly sure that privatisation was "sold" to the British public as releasing money which would be invested in infrastructure.
At the time, I thought it more likely that the money would line the pockets of the shareholders. I didn't forsee that shareholders would be companies based overseas.

Does anyone else remember the 'Tell Sid" adverts when British Gas was sold off - I'm sure that they always ended by saying 'Shares can go down as well as up'.... Maybe it's time for the shareholders to find out the truth of that..! Renationalise without compensation - and pursue them through the courts for the money that they've been ordered to pay (imagine if a court ordered you to pay someone compensation and you said, "Shan't".. 🙄)

it is disgusting isn't it? This culture of paying huge bonus's for rubbish work needs to stop

well I await hearing the media use the word/description I have been thinking for some time,, Corruption, not just Thames Water..

Big mistake privatising water, railways and outsourcing services to private companies for cleaning, catering and parking etc. in the NHS. Not to mention giving the Post Office too much autonomy. This is what happens when, know it all, business men* have too much say in how this country should be run. It would now be incredibly expensive and difficult to re-nationalise. What a mess!

*OK and women

How on Earth did people allow this to happen? Wait...I think I may know the answer...

Coronation

It will be interesting to see the pay scales and bonuses too.

The newest CEO has a package worth £2.3 million:

Thames Water is handing its new boss an annual salary worth £850,000, on top of £102,000 in yearly pension payments, and a £15,000 car allowance. He is also eligible for an annual bonus worth up to 156% of his salary – or £1.3m – that could swell his total pay to £2.3m.14 Dec 2023

Skydancer

Apparently nationalisation would be too expensive as shareholders would have to be paid so much money. That’s my understanding.

The company has debts of £15.6 billion and assets of £19 billion which comprises water pipes, sewage treatment works and reservoirs. Whether the assets are worth that much is debatable considering the age and state of the pipes.

Apparently shareholders have refused to stump up the cash that is needed and the holding company has defaulted on some of its debts.

If it is renationalised the govt will have to take on the debt.

That’s right Skydancer. Very different case with the railways where when contracts end they can simply not be renewed.

It's all wrong. The ongoing PO enquiry shows that even under the greatest miscarriage of justice this country has ever seen those who caused the injustice are still getting massive bonuses. And they were clearly very bad at their jobs! It's a racket for which the British taxpayers like me have to cough up.
How can this possibly be justified I don't know...

The article explains the situation very well.