Customers are right to be angry as Ofwat greenlights increases in bills
Customers are rightly angry at what is being labelled "extortionate" increases in water bills. Yorkshire Water is set to increase average bills for customers by just over £100 next year with the regulator Ofwat giving the green light to its latest plans.
The company’s chief executive claims that “bills have been kept artificially low” and that's the reason why it “feels like a very big increase” to customers.
If bills have been kept “artificially low” then the bonuses of bosses have clearly been over inflated in recent years, including that of Nicola Shaw.
She received a performance bonus worth £371,000 and a salary and pension package worth £657,000 while Yorkshire Water was being fined £47m for historical sewage spills and poor customer service.
The CEO insists that the firm needs to “do more work to meet the standards that people want us to deliver”.
Yes, people want improvements across the board but they also want to see accountability, not failure being rewarded. There is a sense of injustice around allowing water companies to clobber customers with price rises after years of under-investment in the crumbling infrastructure.
The decision by Ofwat to allow firms to raise water bills once again begs the question who does the regulator actually serve.
Customers will certainly not feel that the regulator is on their side.
As Becky Malby, chair of Ilkley Clean River Group, says customers are “already paying bills on a par with the most expensive places in Europe, whilst getting one of the worst services that is polluting our waterways and overseeing a crumbling sewage infrastructure; Ofwat has decided we must send good money after bad and pay more”.
Robust regulation of the water industry is long overdue.