Water Bills to Rise

[Snoopy]

So confirmed the Environment Agency today.
Water Bills will rise to cover the costs of improving flood defences.
Hmmmm Didn't they say that about the repairing of the leaking mains over the past few years?

Privatisation means that over half the water supplies in this country are owned by the F*cking French ~ Let them pay by way of lower, or better yet no, share dividend payouts for a few years.

The Government has a duty of care in all this and they are clearly failing to exercise it properly.

[GROWLER]

....and that's before the insurance companies get their grubby little thieving fingers in the pie too.

[Snoopy]

....and that's before the insurance companies get their grubby little thieving fingers in the pie too.

Which in turn will increase the tax on insurance thus increasing Government take as well.

[D P Dance]

Privatisation means that over half the water supplies in this country are owned by the F*cking French ~ Let them pay by way of lower, or better yet no, share dividend payouts for a few years.

Hang on, have I misunderstood the concept of capitalism?  Are these not public companies, cannot you and I buy shares in these companies, and, in return for holding shares receive dividends if the company propsers.

The alternative, nationalising them, paying huge compensation, and having them run by public servants, hardly bears thinking about.

[Snoopy]

Privatisation means that over half the water supplies in this country are owned by the F*cking French ~ Let them pay by way of lower, or better yet no, share dividend payouts for a few years.

Hang on, have I misunderstood the concept of capitalism?  Are these not public companies, cannot you and I buy shares in these companies, and, in return for holding shares receive dividends if the company propsers.

The alternative, nationalising them, paying huge compensation, and having them run by public servants, hardly bears thinking about.

Yeah ~ you carry on and profit from other's misery ~ why not?
They were nationalised ~ they are no longer. Privatisation for short term Treasury gain has NOT resulted in the promised investment in infrastrucure, lower water charges or any other benefit to the general population.
Clean drinking water is a basic human right ~ says our Government, when they are talking about Africa, so they put our supplies in the hands of our traditional enemies?

If that's capitalism you can stick it.

Just look at what was promised two and a half years ago

Office of Water Services
02 December 2004

PN 55/04                                                         2 December 2004


             OFWAT ANNOUNCES FINAL PRICE LIMITS FOR WATER COMPANIES

Ofwat today published final price limits for the water and sewerage companies in
England and Wales for the five years from 1 April 2005.


Effect on customers' bills


  ? Price limits of 4.2% a year on average for five years (before inflation)
    compared with 6.2% proposed by companies.

  ? Increase in average household bill of ?46 (18%) from ?249 this year to
    ?295 by 2009 (before inflation) - one-third less than ?72 (29%) increase
    sought by companies. Compares with Ofwat draft increase of ?34 (13%).


  ? Bill increases needed to finance substantial (?16.8bn) capital programme,
    and higher running costs faced by efficient companies.


  ? Increase of 8.5% in bills in April 2005 to reflect companies' costs in
    2005-06. Companies sought 12% increase.


Benefits


  ? Safeguards essential customers' services and the environment - requires
    bigger programme than in the past to maintain pipes, sewers and treatment
    works for the future.

  ? Ensures customers receive even safer, more reliable supplies of drinking
    water - achieved through further improvement schemes in water quality and
    security of supply.

  ? Further protection to the environment - major programme of more than 3,000
    schemes to improve rivers and coastal waters, and over 500 investigations to
    inform decisions on future environmental protection.

  ? Resolve or alleviate internal flooding from overloaded sewers for all
    high-risk properties identified by companies.


Effect on companies


  ? Price limits enough to enable efficient companies to carry out and finance
    their functions now and in the future.

  ? Reductions in company proposals reflect some cuts in outputs and realistic
    cost assumptions.

  ? Demanding efficiency challenges assume all companies, especially less
    efficient, will improve further and faster than economy as whole. Scope for
    all companies to out-perform our assumptions.

  ? Financing assumptions appropriate for efficient companies to maintain
    access to the capital markets, e.g. post-tax cost of capital kept at 5.1%.
    Regulatory capital value estimated to rise from ?35 billion to ?41 billion
    over five years.

[Snoopy]

To demonstrate what I mean the following is a selection of Water Companies in the UK. As you will see private investment is hardly an option.
My advice: don't even bother with shares in utilities. As everyone knows if you buy the utilities when playing Monopoly you will surely lose the game.(Source "Do Not Pass Go" by Tim Moore)

Thames Water belongs to Macquarie which is a diversified international provider of specialist investment banking and financial services.

Severn Trent ~ 83% of their shares are in the hands of corporate investors

Yorkshire Water owned by Kelda Group plc. Kelda’s main UK subsidiary is Yorkshire Water. Kelda also owns the US water supply business Aquarion and a number of successful non regulated businesses

Anglia Water is owned by AWG which in turn is owned by a private consortium, Osprey, comprising of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Colonial First State Global Asset Management, Industry Funds Management and 3i Group plc. The company was delisted from the stock exchange on 21 December 2006.

Three Valleys Water is owned by a French Company Veolia Water which operates three water supply companies in the South East of England -Three Valleys Water, Folkestone & Dover Water Services, and Tendring Hundred Water Services. Together, these companies provide 900 million litres of water a day to a population of 3.3 million.
The Chairman of Veolia Water UK PLC is one John Selwyn Gummer ~ best known for forcing his young daughter to eat beef burgers for the benefit of the press during the BSE scandal.Veolia Water UK also operates in the non-regulated sector of the market under Veolia Water Industrial Outsourcing (VWIO) and Veolia Water Operations Ireland.

Bristol Water plc is a subsidiary of Bristol Water Group Ltd, which is itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona S.A. (Agbar).

South East Water is owned by Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund (HDF) and the unlisted Utilities Trust of Australia (UTA). HDF invests in utility infrastructure assets and has over 6,000 investors. UTA is an open-ended trust owned, in the main, by a number of Australian superannuation funds. Both HDF and UTA are managed by Hastings Fund Management Limited.

Welsh Water is owned by Glas Cymru ~ a single purpose company with no shareholders and is run solely for the benefit of customers.

Source for Company Information: The relevant individual company web-sites

[Barman]

Privatising national assets like water, transport, etc. was just sheer lunacy. There is simply no reason why any business cannot be run efficiently with the right management skills in place, nationalised industries failed because of poor management, not because they were nationalised.

[Snoopy]

Privatising national assets like water, transport, etc. was just sheer lunacy. There is simply no reason why any business cannot be run efficiently with the right management skills in place, nationalised industries failed because of poor management, not because they were nationalised.

Indeed, my very point, though I may have over-stated the French involvement .... they seem to have sold out of water and moved onto waste disposal.
As for Nationalisation I wonder what point someone, in receipt of a civil service pension, means by:

The alternative, nationalising them and having them run by public servants, hardly bears thinking about.

I came close to agreeing with him on that bit.

[Misunderstood]

Not in the least wishing to stir......

When I was studying strategic management, I was taught the prime objective of any independent sovereign nation was to secure absolute control of all life and civilisation sustaining utilities.

Starting with water conservation and supply.   

On the other hand, we have a long list of countries to which we are obliged to remain friendly.

[Mr Happy]

So we are to pay when there is not enough water (same costs, hosepipe bans), when they are literally pissing water away and now that there's too much of it.  Meanwhile some garlic eating frenchman is being paid dividends?

 lol:This country is brilliant!

[GROWLER]

Buy shares in 'The Swamp' 
I predict heavenly times ahead and plenty of water too.

[Barman]

Not in the least wishing to stir......

When I was studying strategic management, I was taught the prime objective of any independent sovereign nation was to secure absolute control of all life and civilisation sustaining utilities.

Starting with water conservation and supply.   

On the other hand, we have a long list of countries to which we are obliged to remain friendly.

The UK has sold off just about everything as far as I can see ? even military maintenance has been privatised?

I just can?t see the math behind it or understand the logic. Privatisation inevitably means a cut in the workforce and shareholders to satisfy. UK plc gets to look after the unemployed and the newly privatised company has less to spend on its product. End of.

 

[Misunderstood]

Not in the least wishing to stir......

When I was studying strategic management, I was taught the prime objective of any independent sovereign nation was to secure absolute control of all life and civilisation sustaining utilities.

Starting with water conservation and supply.   

On the other hand, we have a long list of countries to which we are obliged to remain friendly.

The UK has sold off just about everything as far as I can see ? even military maintenance has been privatised?

I just can?t see the math behind it or understand the logic. Privatisation inevitably means a cut in the workforce and shareholders to satisfy. UK plc gets to look after the unemployed and the newly privatised company has less to spend on its product. End of.

 

Alas, I can see the logic all too clearly,  They have sold the family silver because they are not planning on being around much longer,  And very, very rich people get to live in utter luxury wherever they want.

The process of government defending the population and developing the country are long term objectives that offer no material gain to the people in power.  Their only governmental task is to judge how little they have to give us in order to prevent open rebellion by the masses.

You only have to look at Tony Blair to see that he has taken the money and run for his life!  Brown won't be far behind him and you can identify the idiots that will be left behind already, just as John Major was.

I believed that governments that raped countries and ran were only to be found in banana republics.   I guess I was wrong.

Not long now until someone up there inevitably says "Right, Now 'we' are going to have to tighten 'our' belts, 'we' will have to learn (again) that 'No pain' equals 'No gain' until the sun shines again." again.