Water ombudsman to be created amid sweeping changes in England and Wales

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/20/water-ombudsman-sweeping-changes-england-wales-ofwat

Posted by Consistent_Cold9822

11 comments

  3. People who have worked in an industry should never be allowed to regulate it. Apart from still having “mates” in the industry, they would accept as normal practise what many of the public would regard as outrageous.

    By all means, have people who have worked in the regulated industry as advisers but not as decision makers.

  4. From article

    “Reed also vowed to **halve sewage pollution by 2030**, making rivers, lakes and seas “the cleanest since records began” after years of sewage dumping by water companies.”

    From BBC

    “Serious pollution incidents by water companies in England **rose by 60%** in 2024 to the highest number on record, data published by the Environment Agency on Friday shows.”

    So does that mean by 2030 pollution will still be worse than 2023?

  5. Saw the water report this morning and it’s just a load of nothingness; more pointless ‘recommendations’ that companies can simply ignore because there are no real repercussions for the management at these companies.

    The CEO that was given a £1.4 million bonus on top of his £700k salary for ‘productivity’ in a failing company sums it up perfectly. The company was specifically instructed NOT to use the bailout money for bonuses and dividends and they simply ignored that and gave the money out anyways because they knew there would be zero consequences to them and *this* is what needs to change.

    The bottom line is that ALL the utility companies in the UK, so water, power and gas have been monetised beyond belief so that is their primary function to enrichen shareholders and not delivering a viable utility for customers.

  6. Thames Water was bought by Macquarie an Australian “investment” company. All they did was asset strip, borrow money and then sold it on. Macquarie should be banned from investing in UK infrastructure

  7. To do what exactly?

    Impose fines on businesses that are already billions in debt with a captive customer base?

    Their entire business model is to borrow from themselves until the government is forced to buy them out. They’ll increase debt and charges until that happens.

    Nationalise NOW.

  8. We need to start putting people in prison, not telling them off for being a bit naughty.

  10. Too little, too late. They’ve had decades to stop this bomb from going off.

  11. Excellent another toothless organisation that will express dissatisfaction at the way the companies are being run and achieve naff all.

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