Thames Water fails to complete 108 upgrades to ageing sewage works (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 years ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/nature@feddit.uk

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Thames Water has failed to complete more than 100 upgrades to ageing sewage treatment works to meet legal pollution limits, the Guardian can reveal.

The schemes costing £1.1bn were supposed to cut pollution into rivers by increasing the capacity at sewage works, adding phosphorus removal to the treatment process, and installing new storm tanks. The upgrades, which were promised in 2018, are being paid for by customers as part of a five-year spending round to 2025 but will not be delivered within that timeframe.

Meanwhile, Thames Water awaits a crucial decision on Thursday from the regulator Ofwat on the company’s new five-year business plan. Thames wants to increase customer bills 59% by 2030 to pay for record investment of £19.8bn to tackle sewage pollution, leaks and water shortages after decades in which the company has sweated assets and underinvested.

top 3 comments

sorted by: hot top new old

[-] YungOnions@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 years ago

Unbelievable. I'm with these idiots. I look forward to having my bills go up to help 're pay' for all this work.

[-] Deebster@programming.dev 3 points 2 years ago

Effectively they took that money and gave it to the execs and shareholders. No way should they be allowed to take more money to pay for these upgrades - why should they be trusted to do the right thing this time around?

[-] frazorth@feddit.uk 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Well, they claim that they haven't paid shareholders since 2017.

Although the Saudi parent company has been milking it and claiming that's not dividends. Ofwat doesn't seem convinced, but it might be important to note, that regular shareholders have been investing money and getting nothing back as its been laundered.

That's what it is, not dividends, so it must be laundering according to TW.

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024

33 points (100.0% liked)

UK Nature and Environment

935 readers

45 users here now

General Instance Rules:

No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia.
No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies.
No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users.
Do not share intentionally false or misleading information.
Do not spam or abuse network features.

Community Specific Rules:

Keep posts UK-specific. There are other places on Lemmy to post articles which relate to global environmental issues (e.g. slrpnk.net). Research carried out in the UK that affects the UK as well as elsewhere is acceptable.
Keep comments in English so that they can be appropriately moderated.

Note: Our temporary logo is from The Wildlife Trusts. We are not officially associated with them.

Our current banner is a shot of Walberswick marshes, Suffolk by GreyShuck.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

GreyShuck@feddit.uk

Kim@feddit.uk