Help me. I’m a prisoner of the Southern Water Company. Along with the other 2.7 million so-called customers, I have no means of escape. No water choices for us unless we dig dewponds, fill our back gardens with buckets and troughs and dig latrines.
Imprisonment doesn’t come cheap. My water bill for the coming year dropped heavily through my cell door a few days ago. It’s gone up more than 50 per cent on last year.
In the same week Southern Water’s chief executive was awarded a package doubling his annual salary to £1.4 million a year for heading an organisation named and shamed in the same week by Ofwat as a leading polluter of England’s waterways and coastal waters: a reminder to watch out for floaters before chancing your health with a dip in the sea.
I’ve recent first-hand experience of my captor’s indifferent performance. A couple of weeks ago we received a letter from the M Group “Working on behalf of Southern Water tasked with assessing the identification of the correct water supplies whilst delivering a first-class end experience for Southern Water customers.”
Apparently, the Group’s inspector had been unable access our water meter “due to the area being blocked”. In the eight years we’ve lived in our house, this issue has never been raised. As a result our water bill is an estimate.
Puzzled, I rang M and the water company. When had the man from M carried out the failed meter search? Wouldn’t it have been courteous to warn us he or she was coming? A call would have saved the inspector time and the company and customers money.
I spent the thick end of 30 minutes on the phone seeking an explanation from the oddly named customer services department. As the Irish say, it was like throwing stones and running up trees: a complete waste of time. I put the phone down thinking a little more money spent on customer services and less on fattening the chief executive’s wallet might be a good idea.
Meanwhile, my indeterminate prison sentence for shareholder protection continues and I have little hope of liberation.
The main Southern Water shareholder is Sydney-based Macquarie Asset Management, a name familiar to the 16 million former prisoners banged up for 11 years by Thames Water in London and the Home Counties.
Until their release they watched money flow under the bridge as Thames’ debt rose from £3.4 billion in 2006 to £10.8 billion in 2017 under the stewardship of a Macquarie-led consortium.
During the same time Macquarie and other investors trousered £2.8 billion in dividends, while Thames carried off the dubious title of England’s Most Successful Water Polluter.
Why the company was allowed anywhere near the management of Southern Water after its dismal Thames performance is mystery. Is there no ‘fit and proper’ test for would-be water barons?
Macquarie, by the way, is known in Australia as the “Millionaires’ Factory”, largely because of its reputation of high margins, strong profits and eye-eye-watering management bonuses that make a large cohort of its senior managers millionaires – from Sydney to Sussex.
Elsewhere in the UK, Macquarie is buying a 55 per cent stake in Bristol Airport, a 26.5 per cent stake in Birmingham Airport and a 25 per cent interest in the London City Airport.
Other forms of transport are available.
Bill Randall is a former leader of Brighton and Hove City Council and a former mayor of Brighton and Hove.
And added to all that, which I totally agree with, they’re incompetent imbeciles. Earlier this year they actually sent a man to read the water meter (having previously either asked me for a reading because they couldn’t access it – as with you, it’s outside and easily accessible – or not asked at all for some reason, so they guessed). I then got a proper bill and they decided I’d overpaid and was due a refund, which they did actually pay, and that I could carry on with the same direct debit for a while. The only problem was that in doing all this they stopped the ongoing direct debit altogether. I acknowledge I was partly to blame for not noticing they hadn’t collected it, but the amount was quite small and I just didn’t spot it. They noticed it themselves, and whilst I was still trying to understand the unfathomable jumble of numbers they sent me and the less than enlightening ‘communication’ accompanying these numbers, I got one of their nasty threatening letters, which apparently they routinely send out as an alternative to dealing nicely with a problem. Anyway, I restarted the direct debit (at the higher amount they specified, which I thought – wrongly as it turned out – would sort out both the ongoing cost and the arrears they’d caused by their own incompetence) and the whole thing went away, or so I thought. I’ve just had a letter – two in fact, dated three days apart but otherwise identical – hiking the direct debit to nearly double and the only explanation given was that the previous amount, which they specified in the first place, doesn’t cover my costs, so I assume they’re clawing back this underpayment they caused themselves, but don’t know that for a fact. There are no figures in these letters (apart from the amount of the new direct debit in massive blue letters) indicating what these costs actually were or are, telling me what the latest reading was – if there was one – and showing what I’ve paid to date etc. I’ve just looked at my online account, which shows my latest bill as the one for May, which started this omni-shambles in the first place – there’s nothing to say they’ve taken another reading, so I assume they haven’t. They do show the increased direct debit, but no basis for the figure, so I’m none the wiser than I was before.
I did actually make a formal complaint some time back about them giving me a refund and stopping the original direct debit and then sending me an unwarranted threatening letter, although I understood at the time that they rarely, if ever, deal with complaints. I also noted from the internet that there wasn’t even an Ombudsman for Water (something which I think is about to be changed and not before time) – the current situation is, apparently, that after you’ve made two or three unresolved/unanswered complaints, which seems to be fairly normal, you can go to a Consumer Council for Water, who will try to persuade them to sort it all out, but this Council has no actual powers to make the company do anything. Needless to say, they didn’t respond at all to my complaint.
The worst of the worst.
Doubled our bill with 1 months notice. It’s an estimate too.
And then an email yesterday advising on ways to cut water use.
Pay more – use less. Ha!