Following news this week that water bills from Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water will be allowed to increase its bills from an average of £455 this year to £645 in five years time, making them the highest in the UK, isn’t it time for our Governments to directly intervene?
Welsh Water was hit with a hefty fine back in October, ordered to pay a £24.1m underperformance penalty by industry regulator Ofwat - but it seems that we’re all having to subsidise that sum!
Welsh Liberal Democrats have also called for Ofwat to be replaced with a new regulator with increased powers, with their MP David Chadwick having a dig at the previous Conservative Government on matters concerning the water firm, stating: “Make no mistake this announcement is part of the legacy of the previous Government.
“For years they allowed water companies to get away with stripping out the profit for gigantic executive bonuses while failing to invest in vital infrastructure and pumping raw sewage into our rivers.
“It is an absolute disgrace that Welsh customers now face the highest water bills in the UK while also having some of the lowest incomes.
“People are already struggling with the cost of living immensely, the UK Government must intervene.”
The party’s leader Jane Dodds has long campaigned for the clean-up of our rivers and coastlines and for harsher punishments for those guilty of ‘sewage dumping’ stating: “For far too long now, the people of Wales have been saddled with rising water bills while our rivers and coastlines are being polluted with sewage.
“It’s clear that our Welsh water companies have routinely fallen short of the standards expected of them.”
Indeed, calls to finally replace Ofwat with a new, effective regulator to hold water companies accountable, and introduce a single social tariff for water bills to help eliminate water poverty - seem like a good start.
With Tenby escaping a major pollution spill for its beaches at the start of this summer, such events show that the enforcement agency Natural Resources Wales also appear to be totally ineffective in bringing the water company to account.
And just look around your town and community, when do Welsh Water do anything well, yet we’re all paying for their misgivings. Leaks get reported and it can be weeks and weeks before anyone comes out to even consider them, with patched up roads becoming a more and more familiar sight, and issues left to be dealt with at some point further down the line.
Peter Perry, chief executive of Dŵr Cymru, said there had been a "deficit over the last 15 years where bills haven't risen".
He said the firm would improve drinking water and 700km of rivers, and tackle sewage overflows, with £4bn of investment.
©BBCWales
Welsh Water was hit with a hefty fine back in October, ordered to pay a £24.1m underperformance penalty by industry regulator Ofwat - but it seems that we’re all having to subsidise that sum!
Welsh Liberal Democrats have also called for Ofwat to be replaced with a new regulator with increased powers, with their MP David Chadwick having a dig at the previous Conservative Government on matters concerning the water firm, stating: “Make no mistake this announcement is part of the legacy of the previous Government.
“For years they allowed water companies to get away with stripping out the profit for gigantic executive bonuses while failing to invest in vital infrastructure and pumping raw sewage into our rivers.
“It is an absolute disgrace that Welsh customers now face the highest water bills in the UK while also having some of the lowest incomes.
“People are already struggling with the cost of living immensely, the UK Government must intervene.”
The party’s leader Jane Dodds has long campaigned for the clean-up of our rivers and coastlines and for harsher punishments for those guilty of ‘sewage dumping’ stating: “For far too long now, the people of Wales have been saddled with rising water bills while our rivers and coastlines are being polluted with sewage.
“It’s clear that our Welsh water companies have routinely fallen short of the standards expected of them.”
Indeed, calls to finally replace Ofwat with a new, effective regulator to hold water companies accountable, and introduce a single social tariff for water bills to help eliminate water poverty - seem like a good start.
With Tenby escaping a major pollution spill for its beaches at the start of this summer, such events show that the enforcement agency Natural Resources Wales also appear to be totally ineffective in bringing the water company to account.
And just look around your town and community, when do Welsh Water do anything well, yet we’re all paying for their misgivings. Leaks get reported and it can be weeks and weeks before anyone comes out to even consider them, with patched up roads becoming a more and more familiar sight, and issues left to be dealt with at some point further down the line.
Peter Perry, chief executive of Dŵr Cymru, said there had been a "deficit over the last 15 years where bills haven't risen".
He said the firm would improve drinking water and 700km of rivers, and tackle sewage overflows, with £4bn of investment.
©BBCWales
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NewsTranscript
00:00We know the bill increase won't be welcome but for the last 15 years in
00:04Wales our bills haven't risen in line with inflation so we've got that deficit
00:10where we haven't been able to carry out the level of investment that that's been
00:13required and the future in terms of the events of the last month that we've seen
00:18the the significant storms so we need to protect our assets and our customers in
00:22terms of resilience of service and we also know that there's a lot of feeling
00:27about improving river and coastal water quality