Letter: Ofwat Should Hold Thames Water to Account

Published on: 5 Dec, 2023
Updated on: 5 Dec, 2023

From: Tim Wolfenden

Shalford parish councillor

In response to: Thames Water Gives More Detail of Causes of Water Outage Incident

I share the frustrations of local residents and businesses, both with the service provided by Thames Water and its response to the recent outages. An inference that the company was being economical with the truth can be reasonably drawn given the inconsistencies and apparent inaccuracies.

I also agree with the importance of learning lessons to reduce the likelihood of any re-occurrence of the outages we’ve experienced.

However, I am bemused and disappointed by the political theatre now apparently being played out by current and prospective local politicians, with their rival meetings attempting to hold Thames Water to account.

The reality is that Thames Water is a private company with a monopoly for supplying a core utility, answerable primarily to its shareholders and the regulator, Ofwat. Surely it’s the role of Ofwat to hold Thames Water to account by chairing an investigation into what went wrong, drawing on input from the public and identifying lessons to be learned,? It should then apply sanctions if the formal plan to make the necessary changes is not implemented in a reasonable timeframe.

If the regulator’s remit is insufficient, then our parliamentary representatives should be championing changes to the relevant legislation to correct this.

At the same time, I’d suggest a review of the compensation regime which currently offers nothing for those whose domestic supplies were unaffected but whose young children were unable to attend school or pre-school/ nursery and whose jobs are incompatible with home working so they had to forfeit several days income.

Responses to Letter: Ofwat Should Hold Thames Water to Account

jim allen Reply

December 5, 2023 at 1:05 pm

Hold to account! what a joke –
EA response to the A3 Leak SIC “Whilst our assessment is that this incident resulted in a relatively low risk to the environment, we know that rising mains are a significant source of Thames Water pollution incidents”

My response:
So a simply calculation on 20 years (min) could be longer, as no one knows since 1984 when installed the pipe failed, The ever expanding hole from zero to 60mm in March 2023 at 38l/s in the main pipe gives 184,493,089 litres of grade 5 foul water was pumped into the Substrata, if this is low risk into a water source protection zone, the question must be asked what is “hi risk volume” and at what point protection zones protect?

The chance of actually getting anyone with Backbone to pick up the poison chalice of sorting out the fiancial abuse of Thames Water issuing directors fees of multiple millions and payout out share holders benefits on money borrowed from the future income of the company. While failing to maintain the principle infrastructure of this water undertaker be it potable or Foul Is a scheme which needs a new name shall we call it as it is “legalised rip of of the countries residents”