Anyone else with southern water - shocked at bill

[hattie43]

I’ve just received my 6 months water bill and it’s gone from £264 to £678. I knew bills were going up but this seems extreme . We are metered and I can’t see any way these bills are comparable despite having no obvious change in usage

Just got a bill from United utilities in the NW and ours is nearly a grand! Small three bed detached house for family of four. Letter states that it wouldn't be cheaper to get a meter if you have more than three people in the property.

The problem is too many people have complained about sewage overspill into rivers etc. and that is caused by our current limited storm overflow capacity which doesn’t cope with the amount of storms we are having, which have increased beyond forecasts due to climate change. The water companies are trying to increase capacity rapidly but it costs.

If there wasn’t such a fuss about the sewage overspill then they would have increased capacity but at a slower rate, costing households less right now.

I believe they actually wanted to push more costs of increasing capacity to consumers but they were limited by Ofwat.

Rates have gone up by 46% on average but your bill has increased by far more than this. Can you compare it with the last bill? Are they billing you for more water? Perhaps you have a leak?

If it was purely about sewage spills and over capacity then a lot of companies wouldn't be paying out dividends to shareholders.... and yet they are.

19% Wessex Water's bills is to service the debt from the company.... a company that had no debt when it was privatised.

It also paid out 63.5 million in dividends in 2023 to it's shareholders. And gave its executives massive bonuses for performance.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-65347815

I’m with Southern Water. My experience of them isn’t great since they added the water usage from a previously rented address …five years after I stopped living there. Their reason for doing so was that mine was the only name listed as ever having lived at that address, and basically tenants living there after I moved out had free water, so someone just linked their debt to my new address.
Even after I provided all the proof needed, they continued to add the debt to my bill and sent debt collectors to my door. The whole saga only ended when I told them I was happy to go to court and prove their incompetence.
I am just one example of how they waste money, which just gets recouped through charging us more.

Agreed I think they should be far more regulated than they are far more of the cost increases in the next year should come out of profits rather than raised prices!

My unmetered bill has gone from 58 a month to 77 a month this year

Ours is the sewage element only and has gone up from 33 to 52 a month, for some families this will be unmanageable, it is shocking!