"Government can just nationalise it. But then taxpayers will not only face years of legal cases and end up paying the fines owed to themselves; they’ll also still have to find billions to fix leaks, stop sewage dumping and build drought-proof infrastructure". The LIE, the damned lie that's told over and over and over. Over the next 5 years 99% of the funding to fix the leaks, stop sewage dumping, build infrastructure is NOT being provided by shareholders, it's coming from you and me and everyone else via those recent bill increases. The shareholders' contribution is actually less than 1% of the total spend. You should know better @CitySamuel PS. Water company "fines" rarely if ever paid, at all, and certainly not by shareholders. thetimes.com/comment/columni…

Our water crisis calls for radical solutions

While left and right bicker over state or private ownership, no one’s paying to build desperately needed infrastructure

thetimes.com
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Replying to @Feargal_Sharkey
I’m hardly arguing privatisation was a success and I don’t think exaggerating beyond the evidence helps yours. But like I wrote, the important question is what to build and how to do it affordably. Nationalisation does not answer that question.

Aug 20, 2026 · 5:29 PM UTC

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Replying to @CitySamuel
Juliet, glorious to hear from you and thank you for this. I suspect Oxera might want to review some of their work. Transpires that out of the £104 billion supposedly to be spent during this AMP period £14.3bn of it is apparently coming from fresh equity, the remainder, £90bn is "allowed revenue", ie funded through the increase in bills over the next 5 years (Ofwat, City Briefing in December 2024). Upon closer examination however something quite interesting develops, of the £14.3bn coming from equity £13.2bn is then recouped via dividend payments back to the shareholders so in reality over the next 5 years the net contribution from shareholders is just £1bn. Leaving a total of £91bn in funding to be spent over the next 5 years 99% of which is being sourced directly from bill payers pockets. Makes you wonder why we ever needed shareholders in the first place.
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Replying to @CitySamuel @Feargal_Sharkey
Perhaps these companies should be broken up into smaller units? If Portsmouth Water can be building infrastructure like a new reservoir then do we need these huge ex-public companies?
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