‘The whole thing stinks’: UK water firms to pay £15bn to shareholders as customers foot sewage bill
Water companies will pay an estimated £14.7bn in dividends by the end of this decade, while making customers pay for new investment to stem the tide of sewage pollution in seas and rivers, analysis for the Observer has revealed.
Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron denounced the billions going to shareholders as “absolutely scandalous” while families struggling with the cost of living would be facing increases in bills to pay for the sewage cleanup.
“The whole thing stinks,” said Farron, Lib Dem spokesperson on the environment. “This is their mess, they should be the ones to clean it up – not hard-working families.
“The Conservative government needs to stop sitting on their hands and force water companies to use their unearned and unjustified profits to fix the sewage crisis.”
According to analysis by David Hall, visiting professor at the public services international research unit at Greenwich University, dividend payments by the nine English water and sewerage companies, based on 2022 prices, will cost customers £624 each by 2030.
Hall examined annual dividends paid by companies between 2010 and 2022, which average £1.83bn a year. He said all companies have stated policies to reassure investors that they would get good dividends every year. “That implies a total of £14.67bn would be taken in dividends between 2023 and 2030.”
After intense criticism of water companies from campaigners and politicians over the routine dumping of raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters over many years, the industry body, Water UK, last week made a public apology on behalf of the privatised water industry.
“We have listened and have an unprecedented plan to start to put it right,” said Ruth Kelly, the new chair of Water UK. “This problem cannot be
Read more on theguardian.com
