From midnight tonight, seven water companies bring in hosepipe bans for an area covering 20 million people who face a £1000 fine as punishment for anyone breaking the ban.
Every day more than 3.3 billion litres of treated water, that's 20% of the nation's supply, is lost through leaking pipes in England and Wales. The water lost would meet the daily needs of approximately 21.5 million people.
Water regulator, Ofwat, told water companies that their bills were too high and to reduce average bills to customers over the next five years.
Water companies warned that they will not be able to afford to fix the leaks and drop the prices charged to consumers.
The water companies made more than £4.5bn in the last financial year, doubling their profits since 2002.
Therefore fixing leaks eats into profits, not fixing the leaks maintain profits, so they charge the same but limit how much of the commodity it's customer can use. Water companies continue to make vast profits as the same amount of water that we are short continues to be lost through unfixed leaks.
Privatisation, don't you just love it?
4 comments:
I only looked into Thames Water and I could only find 2010 reports.
In 2009 they reported:
- 13m served of 63m in the UK
- about a fifth of the market
- pre tax income as L420m
- tax L120m
- profit L300m
now I’m doing “back of the napkin math”:
- I assume your L4.5b is right
- If so, it was around L4b in 2009
- their share of industry profit should be a fifth or L900m
- yet they reported L300m
- the difference between L900m and L600m is pretty big
- what did I do wrong?
Q
i'm saying the numbers don't work. i'm saying the profit you quoted is wrong. are you sure that isn't gross income?
i also suggest that you buy stock in Thames Water since you think they are so profitable...
q
Sourced from The Independent:
South West Water saw its profits rise by 8.7 per cent to £133m last year, while the smaller Dee Valley Water doubled profits from £3m to £6m. Thames Water's profits jumped from £605m in 2009 to £671m this year, and Northumbrian Water's profits leapt 11.5 per cent from £153m to £170m. Overall, the water companies made more than £4.5bn in the last financial year – double their profits of 10 years ago.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/water-torture-3300000000-litres-are-lost-every-single-day-through-leakage-2034999.html
interesting. in the regulatory public report at Thames they showed a pti of L435m less L120m in taxes for a net profit after tax of of L315m...
http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xbcr/corp/corporate-responsibility-report-summary-200809.pdf
q
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