Anglian Water bills will rise by £140 by 2029-30 – a situation South Cambridgeshire’s MP has branded a “national scandal”.
Liberal Democrat Pippa Heylings said customers were being asked to pay for the failure of water companies and called for the regulator, Ofwat, to be scrapped.
Pippa Heylings by the RIver Mel chalk stream. Picture: Chris Sidell
The 29 per cent increase – from an average of £491 to £631 – was revealed in Ofwat’s latest five-year price review, released in December.
The review follows detailed plans submitted by each water company across the country.
Ofwat said that, nationally, bills from water and wastewater companies would rise by an average of £31 a year to enable them to invest £44billion into the network, to reduce pollution and leakage, meet rising demand and adapt to climate change.
Its report noted: “The scale of the required investment, and the increased cost of financing it, means bills will have to rise. We have taken steps to keep bills fair, spreading the costs of investment between current and future customers.”
But Ms Heylings said: “This is insulting and a kick in the teeth for customers across East Anglia who are already enduring a cost-of-living crisis. It is especially outrageous here in South Cambridgeshire – where water companies have been polluting our local rivers and chalk streams with gallons of sewage year on year.
“This year, Anglian Water’s CFO took a scandalous £95,000 bonus based on undisclosed ‘personal’ targets, while at the same time ordinary customers face ever-increasing water bills.
“It is wrong to ask customers to pay the price for the failure of these water executives. The Liberal Democrats want to see Ofwat scrapped and replaced with a tough new regulator who will put a stop to this madness.”
In its last annual report, for the financial year to the end of March 2024, Anglian Water reported a profit of £431million, up 1.7 per cent, and paid £88.6m in dividends.
It is investing in two new reservoirs – one in Lincolnshire, and another in the Fens between Chatteris and March in partnership with Cambridge Water – to meet rising demand in the region and reduce reliance on sensitive chalk streams. Construction on the Fens reservoir could begin between 2029 and 2031 and it could begin supplying water in 2036. The Lincolnshire reservoir is not expected to be in operation until the late 2030s.
Mark Thurston, CEO of Anglian Water, said: “Worth £11bn over five years, Anglian has one of the lowest bill rises for customers in the UK, yet one of the largest investment programmes. We plan to double our investment in the environment to over £4bn. This includes £635m for new water pipelines to feed the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, £660m to develop two new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and the Fens to supply nearly three quarters of a million people and futureproof against water scarcity; and £2.7bn to improve our resilience to the risk of flood and drought, helping protect our rivers and coastline from the effects of climate change.”