South West Water Bills – what's your opinion? Fill in the survey

By PRSD, on Thursday, July 22, 2010

Torbay MP Adrian Sanders has joined fellow South West Lib Dem MPs in promoting a survey to gather local residents’ views on the disproportionate water rates paid in the south west.

The previous Government commissioned a report on water bills and how inequalities across the UK could be corrected. The recommendations of the report are currently being reviewed by the water regulator OFWAT to determine how best to tackle the problem.

While Ofwat is looking at the technical measures surrounding the various options available, it has not yet sought the views of the public and Adrian is keen to ensure all local people can have their input into the process.

Adrian told the PRSD: “We are getting to the end of a very long process in rectifying the historic water bill injustice, but we still need to keep up the pressure to make sure that it is not forgotten by Government. Ensuring Ofwat is aware of how important this is to the public is crucial.”

If you would like to take the Water Bills Survey, you can find it on Adrian’s website.

(Image: Drop by johnonolan used under a Creative Commons licence)

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Dave

Paul C 8th September.
Entirely agree with your comments.
The problem is, that the people of the South West, (3% of the UK population), have had to pay to clean up 30% of the UK's beaches. It was agreed by the Labour Government, to let Ofwat agree to SWW passing on the cost of the "Clean Sweep" operation to the consumer, (not many Labour voters in the South West!) A similar clean up in N.Ireland was funded by the last Government, not much justice here, but no doubt done for political reasons.
More information is avaialable if you search "Walker Review of Water and Sewerage Charges," and the South West is highlighted in the report as an area that needs urgent attention.

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Paul C

I have just come down to the Honiton area this week to go through my parents accounts, they are retired and close to 80 years of age. They have not been near a beach, of any description, since the mid-1970's but boy are they paying for it.

It is criminal that they have combined income of <£6k per annum yet have to pay £996 of that to South West Water!!!!!! Never mind heating & electric, water costs them 17+% of their annual income. How is this possible????

At least with council tax they get dispensation based on income. With other utilities you can shop around for a cheaper deal. With SWW you are lumbered.

For comparison, I live in the dryest county in England & pay by meter for usage of water - my annual cost is less than £200.

There has to be another way of funding beach maintenance that does not put people in poverty.....

This water bill survey is all well and good, but it fails to list one of the options that was suggested in the Walker Review in to Water Charges, published in December 2009. The option was mentioned on national television,in July, (BBC Breakfast), and was discussed in the news item, with a representative of SWW, as the one they prefer.
The option is, every water bill payer in the country pays, an additional £1 to £1.50 towards the cost of reducing bills in the South West, which seems quite fair, taking in to account, the millions of visitors to the South West who use the beaches. None of the Lib Dems MPs survey forms have shown this an an option. Why not ????

FRONTERAMAN

Like all the utility companies SWW needs to keep the bills high to pay the big bonuses and golden handshakes to its board of directors and major share holders.
Oh and to creame a bit aside for the higher management pension scheme,and jolly's
I once had the displeasure of recieving a tendering document from SWW it was so full of bull it went straight in the bin. They waste absolute thousands on specification writing and over engineered projects that don't work. Come and have a laugh at the sewerage system in Dawlish if you want a prime example. Private companies cannot be trusted to run public utilities, they should all be nationalised again as should the banks.