Residents' Association Forum

Thames Water have produced a public business plan and invite consultation.  See http://www.thameswater.co.uk/haveyoursay/16866.htm (http://www.thameswater.co.uk/haveyoursay/16866.htm)

The water deficit in the greater London area is forecast to become more acute, rising from 35 megalitres per day now to 367 megalitres per day by 2040; but even so it is only a fraction of the vast amount of water lost through leaky pipes in Thames Water's area.  TW acknowledge that the matter of leaks is top of customer comments in recent years, yet their Plan aims to reduce the amount of leakage only  slightly (from the current 669 megalitres lost per day to 612 megalitres by 2040)

TW want to make every household have a water meter.  Their logic is that it will reduce demand, and will enable them to determine where the leaks are!  I cannot help feeling that universal metering will be the prelude to exorbitant billing in the future, with meter rental charges and banded per-litre tariffs.  To date, metered water has worked out cheaper because the water companies want to get householders to take up meters.

If you're not entirely happy with Thames Water and their plan, you should spend the necessary 20-30 minutes doing their online consultation (which is well thought out)

As with so many other 'services' these days, the individual is regarded as just 'a revenue stream.'  Life for rent.

Thames Water write:

"I am writing to let you know that, with approval from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in July 2014, Thames Water has published its final Water Resources Management Plan covering the 25-year period from 2015 to 2040. The plan sets out what we plan to do, where, and by when, to meet the future need for water from people, businesses and the environment.

The plan and associated documents can be downloaded from Thames Water’s website www.thameswater.co.uk/wrmp.

We asked for views while we developed our plans and thank everyone who took part in the consultation process. We plan to continue to engage with regulators, stakeholders and customers on our future strategy and have published our work programme from 2014 to 2019 and our engagement plan on our website. We will update these documents quarterly."

The bottom line:  we will be forced to have meters.  We will use less water, and pay more for it.

- TW had just 350 public responses to the water management plan consultation and just over 1000 on their business plan.

- their main focus will be on "demand management" which basically means they will sell us less water for the same money through the mandatory installation of water meters between now and 2020
- blocks of flats will have bulk meters installed

- TW have, in response to widespread public criticism, slightly increased their target rate of fixing leakage - for which the projected figures remain huge (if they fixed all the leaks they would more than meet the projected daily water deficit from now until 2040).  They say that "further reducing leakage will inevitably increase customers’ bills in order to pay for the activity."  And that meters are necessary to help identify where leaks occur.

Personally, I wouldn't mind so much if I could buy UK shares in Thames Water, for the beneficiaries of this public captive revenue stream include shareholders.    But it is owned by the Chinese and by Australians (Macquarie).  That is one of the consequences of privatisation and the unfettered free market.