‘Unacceptable!’ Anglian Water hikes customer bills by 8% despite six-month operating profits of £255.9m
Anglian Water has hiked up customer bills by 8% despite multi-million pound fines for poor performance, and soaring profits over the last couple of years.
The privately-owned water provider, which covers the Lincolnshire area among other sections of the East Midlands, recorded operating profits of £255.9 million for the first six months of 2023/24 — a 10.6% increase.
However, Anglian Water’s end of year accounts for the full 2023/24 financial year are not yet available, but appear on course to shatter last year’s profit margins of £169 million.
Despite this clear uptake in money coming in, customers are still being expected to pay premiums on their bills from the previous year, to the tune of an 8.2% increase on last year’s prices.
This means a typical Anglian Water customer will be paying £529 for water and sewerage bills in 2024/25, compared to £489 for the year previous.
While price increases and additional cost burdens have become worryingly uncommon for the general public up and down the country in recent years, an element of controversy is attached to the water sector in particular, given the well-documented poor performance of the private companies.
Last year, Anglian Water was ordered by water regulator Ofwat to pay back some £22 million in the form of lower customer bills, following a review of performance targets.
The national water regulator described Anglian Water as a “lagging company” in terms of storm overflow management and sewage spills into beds of water.
Indeed, last year sewage spills in Lincolnshire almost doubled on Anglian Water’s watch, with the company being responsible for 31,623 spills in 2023, a 97% increase on the 2022 figure.
Anglian Water blamed “more extreme weather events” on the increase, as storms Babet and Henk caused flooding headaches across Lincolnshire and beyond late last year and early into 2024.
Last year was the sixth wettest year since records began, but the Environment Agency said that was little excuse for the volume of sewage spills across the water board in recent times.
This has prompted a fourfold increase in the investigation of water companies by the Environment Agency, fully funded by government and water company permits.
All but two water companies in England and Wales are increasing bills this year, and Anglian Water’s 8.2% spike is only fifth highest of all.
This has presented legitimate questions over the future management and handling of not just water companies themselves, but the wider sector.
However, Lincoln’s MP Karl McCartney suggested those who are calling for a return to a publicly owned water industry have “too short memories.”
Yet he called the bill increase “unacceptable,” and argued it is “even more so” with inflation being reduced to just over 3%.
“Their performance does not justify any increase given they have been fined for sewage spills. They even closed a local road for five days to change a water meter.
“However, those who may think water companies should be brought back into public hands have too short memories. Before privatisation, the service we received was much worse.”
Lincoln’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Labour at the next election, Hamish Falconer, called the situation with Anglian Water “a terrible mess” and said “the incentives have been all wrong” for Britain’s water sector.
“There were thousands of incidents in Lincolnshire just last year and in response Anglian Water’s profits only increased.
“Labour will give the water regulator powers to block the payment of any bonuses until water bosses clean up their filth. We don’t need Tory dither and delay, we need immediate action.”
The local Liberal Democrat party has also been vocal on this issue. Coun Clare Smalley, from City of Lincoln Council, called for a blanket ban on water board bosses receiving bonuses when their company has been found to dump sewage in rivers and seas.
“Our community should not be forced to put up with this any longer,” she said. “Yet time and again this Conservative government has voted against tougher action on sewage dumping.
“We need to see a ban on bonuses for water company bosses whose firms have pumped sewage into our waterways, and we need to see our local communities protected from this.”
Anglian Water has been contacted for comment.