We've just had our bill - £224 for the year (no water meter). We're with Severn Trent too. We used to live in the next town along, and it never seemed too bad, but once we moved, it pretty much halved. We also have a natural local water supply, which must help.
Just out of interest, people who are saying how much it costs you per month - do you mean that that's what it would equate to if averaged out over twelve months or is that as in per month throughout the eight months that you have to pay (i.e. April to November)?
I'm not personally in favour of the principle of meters - obviously, I don't blame anybody in the slightest for going for one if it saves them a huge sum, but the fact that you should have to do so seems somehow wrong to me for such a basic natural resource. There's clearly the opportunity for profligacy and some people will choose to use very high-consumption activities and amenities - but it also means that, if there's a leak, you could end up with a colossal bill for it when there's every chance it isn't your fault at all and you couldn't possibly have avoided it.
I'm quite suspicious of 'encouraged' metering promoted as a device to get everybody to 'save themselves money'. The basic infrastructure still has to be paid for and companies and/or the government aren't going to stand back and see their profits/tax revenues nosedive. Often, it just means that unit prices tend to creep up dramatically to cancel out any savings and, once you have the meter, you're at the provider's/government's mercy. I know they currently allow you to revert to paying by rateable value if you end up paying more, but for how long?
Energy efficiency in household appliances has improved immensely over the last decade or two, and yet our bills cost more than ever. Yes, we have far more negligible-draw devices such as tablets and phones, but most households still only have one boiler, one cooker, one fridge etc.
For many years now, we've been told that the taxes on petrol and diesel are so very high in order to heavily discourage us from polluting the environment. Since 2001, this has also been reflected in higher vehicle tax on cars with higher emissions. Now that so many people are switching to electric cars (and before long, we'll have no other option) and the newer non-electric cars are constantly being improved for efficiency and made cleaner, we're informed that there's almost certainly going to be a pay-per-mile tax to replace all of the emissions-based/fuel taxes that the government is and will be losing. So it was never really about punishing us for the pollution at all, then, was it? Free electric charging points are also likely to disappear once electric cars become the standard rather than the exception.
I hate smoking and cannot understand why smokers don't all want to give up; even less that younger people, in full knowledge of all the facts, are choosing to start; but it would be interesting to see what would happen should all smokers stop overnight. Ostensibly, it would save the NHS a fortune, so there would be no need to replace the lost tax revenues through any other means....