Water Companies and Capital Investment

 This year has not been a good year for water companies and the disgusting scale of how much sewage is pumped into our rivers has become mainstream news.  There is real anger at the water companies.

Outflows are meant to be the exception but it seems for those that are monitored, they are pumping sewage into the rivers about 30% of the time.  Who knows what the ones that aren't monitored are doing.

 Apparently 8mm of rain per hours  is considered a storm by water companies and is enough to trigger raw sewage overflowing.  Insurers consider 25mm to be a storm so 8mm is more like a modest soaking than a storm.

Since privatisation, water bills have increased by 40% compared to inflation, investment has declined 17% and £72 billion has been paid in dividends.

The water companies are now saying they will have to spend billions (that they have given to shareholders) to catch-up with the service they should be delivering.  Where are they expecting to get these billions in capital investment?  You - from your water bills.

I  personally have a serious problem with stealth raising of capital through bills.  

These companies do have options to raise capital:

- Issue bonds

- Rights issue (sell shares)

- Government loans

- Government grants

Given the appalling mismanagement of these organisations I think there should be an embargo on all dividends and exec bonuses until they get their house in order.

If their chums in the government do decide to allow them to raise capital through stealth taxes on my water bills, I think the water companies should issue me with shares in return for my cash which they will used to buy their capital plant and infrastructure.  When these water companies then decide to pay their mates dividends then at least I will get some money back. It would make paying dividends a deterrent as the great unwashed population will get a refund and not just their mates.

Just to put the appallingly poor value for money in context,  I have a house in France and my water and sewerage bill for the year is £80.  These services are supplied by my local mayor - not some big corporation.   My home in the UK has separate water and sewerage bills which together are something like £600.   No comparison. My house is near a salmon river which has strict quality controls so no pumping into the river their.

Do the water companies think we are stupid?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trust - country first, party second - Labour's lies and dishonesty

 I would say trust is probably the number one thing in a successful marriage/relationship. This year we ended up in a new relationship with the Labour government - OK it felt like an arranged marriage but nevertheless it was a fixed term union of the people and Labour. Killjoy Starmer started off on the 5th July 2024 saying positive things about this marriage.  Here's some extract from  Killjoy's wedding vows:      "Country first, party second"      "When the gap between the sacrifices made by people and the service they receive from politicians grows this big, it leads to a weariness in the heart of a nation, a draining away of the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future" [this was aimed at the outgoing Conservatives - not the weariness that Killjoy is inflicting upon us.]           "Now this wound, this lack of trust, can only be healed by actions, not words."      "I know that, but we ca...
Read more

Les miserables - Labour's misery

 If I cast my mind back to 1997, Tony Blair entered government to  fanfare of positivity.  His adopted anthem of D:Ream Things Can Only Get Better echoing through the corridors of power. Tony was always positive, smiling.  I can't say I remember him fondly.  I'm still spitting feathers over Tony's then Chancellor Gordon Brown stealing £60k from my pension claiming I was the subject to pensions windfall tax for holding BT shares - annoying as BT was our biggest customer hence the company pension fund bought into BT.  Still at least Tony was smiling when he stole it from me.  Not once did he call me greedy. Anyway - the general population was upbeat despite Robin Hood Blair stealing from the not so rich and giving it to his Labour buddies (cronies nowadays). We genuinely believed things could get better. Then Miserable Brown came to power from Grinning Blair. He was always miserable.  Then things got worse as he trashed the economy.  We all bec...
Read more

Landlord EPC's part 2

Following on from the previous blog about the stupidity of  Labours EPC #C plans , I thought I would do a little more digging into EPCs. To start with I thought about doing an EPC assessor course. Prices are about £1,000+VAT for an on-line (not taught) course.  Pretty steep. I also looked into whether there's an on-line points calculator - the problem is you have to take the EPC report  as gospel and can't challenge it. If you do a quick search on-line you find horror stories where a property was C.  Then the EPC expired requiring a new EPC and the new assessor scored the property "D" - WORSE !!! The problem is EPC scoring is not transparent - you are in the hands of someone that did an on-line course for 3 days.  Has not got a degree in building science and will guess or assume the worst. The EPC assessors must think we are stupid and won't ask questions.... So in short who knows what the real EPCs of my buildings are. You can't discuss things with an EPC ass...
Read more