Steve Reed[, the Environmental Secretary,] said the “biggest ever investment” in the water industry, amounting to around £88bn in private cash, will allow the Government to “fix the foundations” of the water sector and bring an end to the sewage crisis.
Clean water campaigners have criticised the fact that bill payers will be forced to pay for the clean up of the country’s waterways, with average bills expected to rise by around £19 a year between 2025-2030.
But officials have insisted that under the Government’s reforms, every penny of cash raised will be invested into major infrastructure upgrades, rather than being syphoned off in dividends to investors.
New plans being introduced will mean water firms that fail to spend the money raised from customers on infrastructure upgrades will be refunded to bill payers.
The spending is due to be finalised by Ofwat in December when it sets out its final determination for bill rises. Its initial recommendation, published over the summer, was for £88bn to be raised through customer bills, despite the water industry asking for £105bn.
[…]
Under the plans, around £10bn will be invested in storm overflow upgrades, £4bn to boost the country’s water supply, including building the first new reservoirs for more than a generation, and £6bn in tackling nutrient pollution, caused largely by the agriculture sector. The Government hopes that building more reservoirs will increase the UK’s water resillience [sic] and support its plans to build more new homes.
[…]
As well as protecting investment in water infrastructure, the Government earlier this month published legislation to toughen up the laws that will see water bosses face jail time if they are found to be covering up illegal sewage dumping.The Water (Special Measures) Bill, will also give the regulator the power to ban the payment of bonuses to water executives if they are found to be failing customers.
Regulator, the Environment Agency (EA), will also see its staffing numbers increased, while all investigations into water firms will be paid for by the sector, significantly boosting resources for the body.
UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
view the rest of the comments
Regime will never act to hurt its own pocket... Regime whores ain't got the balls to bite the hand that feeds them.
Ain't neo feudalism grand?