Thames Water to spend £5.5bn over next five years
Thames Water, the UKs largest water and sewerage company, increased pretax profit by 3.8% to £435.1M in the year to 31 March. But it warned that bills would have to rise to fund ongoing repairs to the network.
Thames Water has told regulator Ofwat that it wants to spend £5.5bn on improvement and maintenance over the next five years.
Almost 60% will be spent on maintaining current service levels, including accommodating expected growth in the region. A further 30% is required to meet new statutory obligations and the London Tideway Tunnels projects. Spending on service improvements, including sewer flooding and odour reduction, will account for around 10% of capital expenditure.
“In producing our Business Plan for 2010 to 2015, which is currently with Ofwat forconsideration, we have struck a careful balance between maintaining our best ever levels of service through essential investment, and ensuring our customers are willing and able to pay for it,” said Thames Water chief executive, David Owens. “
“We are determined to keep bills as low as possible, staying well below the industry average, at less than £1 a day, until 2015.
“If the company does not get approval from Ofwat to make this essential investment, the delay will only keep bills artificially low in the short term, as customers will pay more in the long term to maintain deteriorating assets”.
Share
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment.