Water companies

[beardface]

Does it boil anyone else's pee that they want to increase rates by a substantial amount? Having pocketed investment money for the past couple of decades and polluted the water courses, they now have the cheek to ask for more money to improve things that should of already been improved and fix stuff that shouldn't of been allowed to fall into disrepair.

 

[Exfarmer]

Does it boil anyone else's pee that they want to increase rates by a substantial amount? Having pocketed investment money for the past couple of decades and polluted the water courses, they now have the cheek to ask for more money to improve things that should of already been improved and fix stuff that shouldn't of been allowed to fall into disrepair.

But an awful lot of the issues with our sewer network in particular is because they have not been allowed to raise charges by the necessary to sort the issues that they were originally charged with sorting.
It is very easy to blame the shareholders with taking dividends , but who would buy shares in a company which was not going to. Their shares would have lost money till eventually they had collapsed.
the alternative would been to have borrowed vast quantities, which of course they have done as well but thenthey would have to pay interest on this money. Things have now come to the head, thanks to the sharp increase in in terest rates, the regulators did not allow borrowing long term as it was cheaper to borrow short term and now it is biting all in the bum.
This has not been helped by the water companies , originally formed to sort out the countries dilapidated sewers were then charged with changing water sources to improve the environment, all well and good but again at phenomenal cost which they were never given the chance to charge the consumer for the cost. Chuck on top a huge amount of new houses being built and we have the mess we have now

 

[Timbo]

Does it boil anyone else's pee that they want to increase rates by a substantial amount? Having pocketed investment money for the past couple of decades and polluted the water courses, they now have the cheek to ask for more money to improve things that should of already been improved and fix stuff that shouldn't of been allowed to fall into disrepair.

Nearly every Water Plus (severn Trent) Bill I get - the rate or the SC has gone up. It never comes back down!!

 

[Goweresque]

How many times does it have to be pointed out that there's only one lot of people who are on the hook for the cost of operating the water and sewage systems, and thats us, the general public? We are all the customers requiring our taps to have water in, and our sh*t to be dealt with, and we are all the taxpayers to our government. So regardless of whether water companies are privately owned, or State owned there is only one source of funds to upgrade the systems - us. If we want spiffy clean rivers full of lovely wildlife then we are going to have to pay for it. No one else will. We can't send the bill to France or Germany, or Mars. A business has no money of its own. It only has the money it can raise in charges to its customers, or whatever it can borrow. If it borrows it has to make a profit to be able to pay interest and ultimately repay the loans, which in turn has to again come from increased charges to the customers.

No-one else is going to pay to upgrade the water and sewage system, which if we want to separate sewage and storm water is going to cost hundreds of billions. Its all down to us, each and every one of us. Higher charges or higher taxes, take your pick.

 

[essex man]

How many times does it have to be pointed out that there's only one lot of people who are on the hook for the cost of operating the water and sewage systems, and thats us, the general public? We are all the customers requiring our taps to have water in, and our sh*t to be dealt with, and we are all the taxpayers to our government. So regardless of whether water companies are privately owned, or State owned there is only one source of funds to upgrade the systems - us. If we want spiffy clean rivers full of lovely wildlife then we are going to have to pay for it. No one else will. We can't send the bill to France or Germany, or Mars. A business has no money of its own. It only has the money it can raise in charges to its customers, or whatever it can borrow. If it borrows it has to make a profit to be able to pay interest and ultimately repay the loans, which in turn has to again come from increased charges to the customers.

No-one else is going to pay to upgrade the water and sewage system, which if we want to separate sewage and storm water is going to cost hundreds of billions. Its all down to us, each and every one of us. Higher charges or higher taxes, take your pick.

Public ownership would mean that those of us who treat our sewage privately pay twice

 

[Goweresque]

Public ownership would mean that those of us who treat our sewage privately pay twice

Even if the water industry were entirely State owned I don't think there would be much desire in government to try and raise taxes to pay for improvements. There's too many other calls on the public purse. Whether private or State owned, the money is going to have to come from the customer via higher charges.

 

[beardface]

How many times does it have to be pointed out that there's only one lot of people who are on the hook for the cost of operating the water and sewage systems, and thats us, the general public? We are all the customers requiring our taps to have water in, and our sh*t to be dealt with, and we are all the taxpayers to our government. So regardless of whether water companies are privately owned, or State owned there is only one source of funds to upgrade the systems - us. If we want spiffy clean rivers full of lovely wildlife then we are going to have to pay for it. No one else will. We can't send the bill to France or Germany, or Mars. A business has no money of its own. It only has the money it can raise in charges to its customers, or whatever it can borrow. If it borrows it has to make a profit to be able to pay interest and ultimately repay the loans, which in turn has to again come from increased charges to the customers.

No-one else is going to pay to upgrade the water and sewage system, which if we want to separate sewage and storm water is going to cost hundreds of billions. Its all down to us, each and every one of us. Higher charges or higher taxes, take your pick.

The trouble with our private water companies is that much of the cash introduced by customers has been pocketed by shareholders. If it was state run then most of the cash introduced through taxation could be spent on operating and improving the water network. Utilities is an example of how privatisation doesn't always work.

 

[Punch]

The trouble with our private water companies is that much of the cash introduced by customers has been pocketed by shareholders. If it was state run then most of the cash introduced through taxation could be spent on operating and improving the water network. Utilities is an example of how privatisation doesn't always work.

Utilities in 1970’s Union run country was an example of how nationalisation didn’t work either!

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

The galling bit for me is seeing the rampant inefficiencies across the entire water industry operations - these inefficiencies add up to billions of pounds - all of which comes from us, the customers. Seemingly shareholders and management still get their huge rewards- and given they simply pass on all & any costs to us mugs..sorry, customers, it's not in their interest to pay attention. If they were privatised I'm sure some of the inefficiencies would remain but at least there would be far greater scrutiny and accountability which might effect some improvement.

 

[Exfarmer]

The galling bit for me is seeing the rampant inefficiencies across the entire water industry operations - these inefficiencies add up to billions of pounds - all of which comes from us, the customers. Seemingly shareholders and management still get their huge rewards- and given they simply pass on all & any costs to us mugs..sorry, customers, it's not in their interest to pay attention. If they were privatised I'm sure some of the inefficiencies would remain but at least there would be far greater scrutiny and accountability which might effect some improvement.

Where have you been for the last 40 years, we are discussing the failures of the privatised water companies. you are correct that privatisation made no difference at all to the inefficiencies which are rampant in all those industries and I believe in so many other privatised and other industry

 

[essex man]

The trouble with our private water companies is that much of the cash introduced by customers has been pocketed by shareholders. If it was state run then most of the cash introduced through taxation could be spent on operating and improving the water network. Utilities is an example of how privatisation doesn't always work.

The customers would still pay under public ownership, this would be wasted, then to prevent price rises , money would be pumped in from general taxation, which would be wasted and so on...thus is the history and present of publically owned and run things

 

[DrWazzock]

Let me tell you how it works in a small business.
If investment is needed, which it often is, it comes out of the pocket of us, the workers and owners. We only draw a return when that investment comes to fruition. Until that time we are only paid as much as the business can afford which isn’t a lot. Yes we could pay our “shareholders” and “employees” what they think they “deserve” but then we couldn’t make long term investments and the business would fold as infrastructure deteriorated. Raise prices? Well I’ll try that with my grain merchant and see what he says. Prices stuck at 1990’s levels.
So why is it one rule for large corporations who run our services and seem to have to be paid “what they deserve” at the cost of lack of investment in infrastructure and another rule for small businesses like mine who just have to suck it up year on year and get on with it?
Sorry but I’ve no sympathy at at all. Water and sewerage charges have risen year on year way ahead of the prices of anything I sell. They’ve simply not reinvested enough of the profit and now they are crying for even more money. Yet even if they got more money they’d probably just award themselves bonuses and bigger dividends for the shareholders, nationalised or privatised.
A disgrace really.

 

[DrWazzock]

I don’t know what the answer is. But generally it seems to come down what can be loosely described as “usury”.
Usury by lenders, landlords, banks, shareholders and other capitalists who think that just because they own the capital, everybody else should pay them a surcharge for that.
Usury by unionised and entitled workers from top to bottom of organisations who think that just because they could do the job then they should be paid anyway, whether or not they actually earn anything for the business.

 

[DrWazzock]

We see it all the time really. People in front of inquisitors at public inquiries who didn’t even know what was going in the businesses they are supposed to lead. Six figure salaries because they were a jolly good chap and knew the right people. Nobody is worth more than £50k in my book no matter how long they purport to work or how many emails they have to deal with. But we are somehow caught in awe of these so important people. Well it’s nonsense in my view and I’ve entirely lost patience with them. No sympathy at all.

 

[DrWazzock]

The other issue I see is this.
How many people are actually out there shouting and moaning that they can’t go swimming in the rivers or every beach?
Only about 0.001% of people who make a lot of noise on woke BBC programmes like Countryfile and Panorama. Yet we are all expected to dig deep to indulge this minority hobby.
Well why don’t the people that want to swim in every river open a fund to help pay form their minority hobby rather than expect everybody else to pay for it all to be done instantly. Improvements are actually being made already but it’s slow and steady progress.
I can’t remember a time when it was safe to swim in the rivers locally due the danger or very serious diseases like polio and typhoid. You’d probably have to go back to 1400 when population was much lower to risk that here.
But nowadays people live in a world of endless self entitlement no matter the cost to wider society. Shut up and do something useful I say.

 

[som farmer]

what the country needs to realise, is the simple fact that the UK is borrowed up to the neck, and borrowing more money is just expensive, paid for by taxation.

we cannot expect guv to 'sort' out the nations problems, without us paying more tax.

austerity, as tried by the guv, was hugely unpopular, but was the only way to bring the economy back to sensible levels.

the truth is, we have to get used to less services by any guv, it cannot afford everything they promise.

 

[Exfarmer]

The other issue I see is this.
How many people are actually out there shouting and moaning that they can’t go swimming in the rivers or every beach?
Only about 0.001% of people who make a lot of noise on woke BBC programmes like Countryfile and Panorama. Yet we are all expected to dig deep to indulge this minority hobby.
Well why don’t the people that want to swim in every river open a fund to help pay form their minority hobby rather than expect everybody else to pay for it all to be done instantly. Improvements are actually being made already but it’s slow and steady progress.
I can’t remember a time when it was safe to swim in the rivers locally due the danger or very serious diseases like polio and typhoid. You’d probably have to go back to 1400 when population was much lower to risk that here.
But nowadays people live in a world of endless self entitlement no matter the cost to wider society. Shut up and do something useful I say.

You have hit the nail on the head regardingf the bathing quality, there is very little risk to the environment from the bacterial loading which is what the wild swimmers worry so much about however it is all the other chemicals , I think cleaners are probably the worst of the lot. This nutrient and chemical; loading must be the biggest issue , certainly causing algal blooms and probably poisoning the invertebrate life living in the bottom of our ponds lakes and rivers, the basis of the food chain

 

[Exfarmer]

Let me tell you how it works in a small business.
If investment is needed, which it often is, it comes out of the pocket of us, the workers and owners. We only draw a return when that investment comes to fruition. Until that time we are only paid as much as the business can afford which isn’t a lot. Yes we could pay our “shareholders” and “employees” what they think they “deserve” but then we couldn’t make long term investments and the business would fold as infrastructure deteriorated. Raise prices? Well I’ll try that with my grain merchant and see what he says. Prices stuck at 1990’s levels.
So why is it one rule for large corporations who run our services and seem to have to be paid “what they deserve” at the cost of lack of investment in infrastructure and another rule for small businesses like mine who just have to suck it up year on year and get on with it?
Sorry but I’ve no sympathy at at all. Water and sewerage charges have risen year on year way ahead of the prices of anything I sell. They’ve simply not reinvested enough of the profit and now they are crying for even more money. Yet even if they got more money they’d probably just award themselves bonuses and bigger dividends for the shareholders, nationalised or privatised.
A disgrace really.

Correct in many ways, but the real issue was the privatisation was aimed at encouraging money such as pension funds to be invested on the back of guaranteed long term returns. Without any projections of this there would have been no investment. I would invite you to go along to your locval bank ( if you can find one ) With a a busainess proposal “ we need £5,000,000 borrowed for the next 50 years at the end of which we will repay your money at the rate of 3%
I do believe you will only remain in his office only until he has picked himself up off the floor
utilities were marketed as being a gold plated investmentc since the market was fixed andf only the regulator would stop you overcharging. The issue has been the regulator has been sat on by governments over the year to stop bills going to high, at the same time they have allowed apparently genuione costs to be passed on. This has lead to a situation where genuinely needed projects have become phenomenally expensive since there is no pressure to contain costs as the project is approved and the money will be recouped through the bill. While sensible long term moves such as fixing longf term interest rates at very low historic prices were not approved since they could borrow the money short term for possibly 0.5% less.

 

[bluebell]

The big worry is, them going "bust" then the govt will have to pick up the mess and pay, thats us lot who always pay the tax payer, thames water, according to the press, is close to going bust? Easy way out for businesses, large and small, to go bust/bankrupt what ever, then walk away from the mess. problems? Last winter when the wholesale gas price went through the roof, many "private gas /utlity providers", just did that, and guess what again who picked up the bill? Whilst those private gas/utility providers directors trousered, walked away with millions, all legal? But wrong?

 

[essex man]

The big worry is, them going "bust" then the govt will have to pick up the mess and pay, thats us lot who always pay the tax payer, thames water, according to the press, is close to going bust? Easy way out for businesses, large and small, to go bust/bankrupt what ever, then walk away from the mess. problems? Last winter when the wholesale gas price went through the roof, many "private gas /utlity providers", just did that, and guess what again who picked up the bill? Whilst those private gas/utility providers directors trousered, walked away with millions, all legal? But wrong?

They don't owe the government money.
The taxpayer has no need to pick up the tab