Water Boards - can we sue directors?

[Hmmhmm99]

Waterboard excessive payments to directors and now increases in customer payments.

Can the public sue the executives and ask them to pay back their excessive bonuses...?

The water board hasn’t existed for decades. You mean private water companies.

No you can’t. What they pay their staff or directors is essentially a matter for them. The amount they can charge customers is decided by the regulator, not the companies themselves

Some environmental groups are suing the local water company for pollution in the river Wye. That might have a better chance of success. Even though most of the pollution seems to come from the local farmers.

It’s incredible it’s come to this. The joys of privatisation. No one is accountable yet so many make ££££££s. What a piss take.

I absolutely can't believe they are asking for immunity for prosecution for environmental crimes for the next 15 years!!! It's been such a disaster.

I very much doubt it, but I'm absolutely livid about it.

My water company is Southern, one of the companies that has been allowed the extra 3% increase. Earlier this year, they almost doubled their CEO's pay package, to £1.4m.

They also have a pisspoor record for both water leakages and sewage discharges. They had an absolute gusher of a leak in Hastings that took days to fix last year, a village somewhere in Kent was on bottled water for several days because of a burst main this year, they poured untreated sewage onto the beach at Bexhill for days on end last year and had a massive sewage discharge in the New Forest the previous year.

My water charges are £47-odd a month and I live alone. I'm so careful with water it's untrue (metered supply). My bathroom was refitted 2 years ago with a water-efficient shower which I turn off while I soap myself and shampoo my hair, I have the best rated washing machine for water efficiency and always make sure I have a full load, so I use it as little as possible. I never leave taps running, never use more water than I have to.

And they waste money. My ex was their building maintenance manager and was paid a significant callout allowance for being on standby in case or some sort of building emergency. In the 10 years of our marriage that he was working for them, he was never, ever called out, and they wasted money in loads of other ways that I wouldn't be prepared to disclose on a public forum.

According to this link Water bill increases, Southern will be putting their charges up by 47% next year. That will increase my monthly payment to nearly £70.

God knows how families on low incomes will manage. I'll have to restrict how often I flush the bog, or start pissing in the garden or something.

It's worse than that. The water copanies were created and privatised when they had no debt. The private companies then borrowed billions of pounds, gave it away as dividends to the shareholders and now are on the brink of bankruptcy because they cannot pay the loans.

And if they do go bust we cannot live wthout water so the taxpayer will have to pick up the bill.

Oh my god. I had no idea it was this bad.

And the loans were allowed on the basis they would invest in infrastructure? Or what?

How is this evening possible or legal?

No prosecutions?

No such thing as a waterboard.

Anyone who comes to your house or your relatives house, saying they need to come in, they are from the waterboard is a con artist.

The loans were allowed on the basis that the bank would lend the money. They are private companies they have no need for any additional justification.

And yes it was all perfectly legal.

Yes, it's poultry farming which has wrecked the Wye.