Thames Water

Morning Star Editorial: South East Water should be taken into public ownership

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/south-east-water-should-be-taken-public-ownership

 A worker hands over bottled water at a water station in East Grinstead, after bad weather was blamed for more water outages in Kent and parts of Sussex, January 12, 2026

HOW much longer are people in south-east England expected to put up with the depredations of South East Water?

Seventeen communities across Sussex and Kent, including 30,000 households, were without a water supply today, in some cases for the fourth day running. And this comes after prolonged outages last year, notably in and around Tunbridge Wells.

There is no more basic human requirement than a water supply. Without it, society starts to crumble and, indeed, schools, libraries and health clinics have had to shut in affected areas while elderly residents have been asked to travel up to seventy miles to secure a bottled water supply.

The only thing not in short supply from South East Water is excuses, mainly around the weather — that and fat-cat payments of course.

As recently as 2023 the company was spending millions more on dividends and interest payments on debt — it was debt-free when privatised by Thatcher — than it was in investing in its crumbling infrastructure.

And bungling chief executive David Hinton was, almost unbelievably, paid a £115,000 bonus last year on top of his £400,000 salary.

This was despite not only South East Water’s wretched service delivery but also the fact that it had to turn to its owners —  mainly overseas investment funds — for an extra £200 million in cash to stave off insolvency. The company is barely more stable than the effectively bankrupt Thames Water. Local MPs have unsurprisingly called on Hinton to resign.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/south-east-water-should-be-taken-public-ownership

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: South East Water should be taken into public ownership

Morning Star Editorial: Unrestricted corporate profiteering, not over-regulation, is ruining this country

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 Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves takes part in a townhall session at the Calthorpe Community Gardens in London, December 18, 2025

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The State of Regulatory Enforcement in the UK report by Good Jobs First is essential reading because it shatters the self-serving myth that Britain is held back by over-regulation.

Rather, recent governments have combined significant relaxation of the rules with systematic underfunding of supervising agencies: the Health & Safety Executive has lost 45 per cent of its budget since 2010, the Environment Agency 50 per cent.

The result is corporate impunity. Companies that break the rules — whether on safety, workers’ rights, pollution or anything else — are unlikely to be caught.

When they are — and the privatised water sector is one of the few where fines have risen in 2024-25 — the nature of corporate investment incentivises continued rule-breaking. This year we’ve seen international creditors threaten to collapse Thames Water if their money is used to pay fines it received for breaking the law.

Good Jobs First has exposed how prevalent non-enforcement of the rules is across the entire economy.

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Unrestricted corporate profiteering is making Britain an ever dirtier, more dangerous and more expensive place to live.

Significant expansion of public ownership and investment in regulatory agencies to give them the means to punish bad actors is the only solution: it requires a radical change of direction from the next PM.

Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unrestricted-corporate-profiteering-not-over-regulation-ruining-country

Corporate abuses run rampant amid health and safety law’s collapse

 A general view of the Houses of Parliament in London

Report shows enforcement hits new lows under Labour

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The data showed a steep drop in regulatory penalties for abusive employers in workplace safety, consumer protection, as well as financial and environmental offences.

This steep decline follows a government request earlier this year, asking regulators to ease actions against businesses in the hopes of stimulating economic growth.

PM Sir Keir Starmer’s government sent out letters to 17 regulators telling them to relax rules for companies across several key sectors.

In response, environmental agency enforcement continued its decades-long decline in 2025, while the Financial Conduct Authority saw a drop of nearly £600 million in penalties compared with 2024.

The report also showed that successful outcomes at employment tribunals went down this year, while the number of cases waiting to be heard have increased dramatically, with many being scheduled for 2027 or 2028.

Levels of enforcement from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also dropped, the think tank found.

Reacting to the report, Green MP Sian Berry told the Star: “This report lays bare a catastrophic weakening of the rules that protect people and the planet. 

“When environmental enforcement collapses, polluters get a green light to poison our rivers, trash our air and destroy habitats with impunity. 

“The decades-long decline in Environment Agency enforcement, alongside falling financial penalties, is not an accident; it is the result of political choices.

“This is a clear failure of the Labour government to stand up to corporate power.

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Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Unrestricted corporate profiteering, not over-regulation, is ruining this country

Thames Water faces collapse as crisis talks take ‘longer than expected’

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/03/thames-water-half-year-profit-leaps-to-nearly-400m-even-as-collapse-risk-remains

Thames Water has been on the brink of collapse for more than a year, struggling under the weight of £17bn in net debt, built up over decades since privatisation. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Debt-ridden utility company warns of ‘material uncertainty’ despite seeing profits rise to more than £400m

Thames Water has said crisis talks to secure its future with lenders are taking “longer than expected” and will drag into 2026 as it faces the prospect of a collapse into government control.

Britain’s biggest water company on Wednesday said it had swung to a profit of £414m for the six months to September helped by bills rising by nearly a third, after losing £149m in the same period in 2024.

Despite the jump in reported profits, the company said there was “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt” on its status as a going concern. A collapse into government control under a special administration regime (SAR) – a form of temporary nationalisation – “could occur in the very near term” if it is unable to agree the terms of a formal takeover by its controlling lenders.

Those creditors have asked the regulator, Ofwat, and the government for Thames to be let off future fines for pollution, arguing the prospect of hundreds of millions of pounds of extra costs is making a turnaround impossible.

The standoff has already continued for months longer than originally anticipated and the talks were expected to have concluded by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the company said: “Discussions are taking longer than expected but this is a complex situation and the current phase of the restructuring plan will likely take a number of months to conclude.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/03/thames-water-half-year-profit-leaps-to-nearly-400m-even-as-collapse-risk-remains

Continue ReadingThames Water faces collapse as crisis talks take ‘longer than expected’

New data exposes ‘the bankruptcy of Britain’s privatised water model’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-data-exposes-bankruptcy-britains-privatised-water-model

 A tanker pumps out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after recent heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024

Water companies record worst-ever environmental performance in England as serious pollution incidents increase by 60% in 2024, Environment Agency finds

EMBATTLED water companies have recorded their worst-ever environmental performance in England, with serious pollution incidents up 60 per cent last year, data from the Environment Agency revealed yesterday.

Thames Water, Southern Water and Yorkshire Water were responsible for 81 per cent of all serious incidents, while Thames Water alone saw cases more than double.

Northumbrian and Wessex Water were the only companies with none.

The agency said only Severn Trent achieved the top four-star rating for 2024, while all nine water and sewage firms in England collectively earned just 19 out of a possible 36 stars — the lowest since the annual performance system began in 2011.

The regulator said the decline marked the end of over a decade of gradual improvement.

Serious pollution incidents causing significant environmental harm rose to 75, their highest since 2013.

The agency partly blamed extreme weather, which strained ageing infrastructure, but said “this is never an excuse.”

It also cited long-term underinvestment and poor maintenance.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-data-exposes-bankruptcy-britains-privatised-water-model

April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)

Continue ReadingNew data exposes ‘the bankruptcy of Britain’s privatised water model’

Thames Water want to pollute illegally until 2040

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Continue ReadingThames Water want to pollute illegally until 2040