Water companies should be fined for pollution into bankruptcy and then renationalised for nowt. The debts were incurred by the management and shareholders_ let them foot the bill!
Their obscene profiteering has gone unchallenged for too long. If chief executives had been threatened with custodial sentences, there would have been immediate action.
Thames Water have taken the piss for too long. Please nationalise Thames water and get rid of them for good! We cannot have our rivers and seas polluted for a moment longer!
All water companies with debts should be dissolved immediately and all/any assets transferred to public ownership. All recipients of bonus payments should be ordered by court to return all payments received which should be returned to the public purse to start funding upgrading of all water systems.
The shareholders have been making great profits out of the privatisation of water. We the tax payers must not accept any terms whereby the shareholders are not held accountable for the dreadful mess they have left behind!
I remember the mantra of Maggie Thacher’s government on privatisation, “I’ll be better for everyone, and competition will drive down prices, knowing full well that sell our utilities to big investors only results in making them richer to the detriment of cost of living and health. Conservative have nearly turn our great nation into a third world country.
Water companies should be find for pollution into bankruptcy and then renationalised for nowt. The debts were incurred by the management and shareholders_ let them foot the bill!
I’m sick of the pollution from the water companies corrupting the environment. We all need clean water and Thames Water, among others, are doing their best to ensure we won’t get it. The CEO’s should not be receiving their immense bonuses and should be cleaning up their mess.
Water companies bosses should lose there jobs and be prosecuted for polluting are waterways. When you fine them it’s us the public that pay the fines 🤮
The water companies have breached the law, poisoned water, polluted our environment and awarded themselves millions for doing it. They should not be compensated for this awful record, they should be behind bars!
The Government needs to act to protect the general public from the harm that profiteering water companies have inflicted upon communities and their environments. These companies have proved beyond doubt that they are not trustworthy and need to be taken fully into public ownership. Starting with Thames Water who are a continuing disgrace and have taken out so much money that they will never be in a position to rectify the situation. Company greed fulfilment should not be the purpose of rising water bills whilst services fail and pollution increases. Please do not be seduced by the offer of a Golden Ticket.
The latest UK national risk register puts water outages as the No risk, escalating this issue into one of critical national importance. With the world getting riskier, allies becoming threats, we can no longer allow a vital national asset & basic requirement for life to be threatened by foreign corporations that put profits above the Health of our people & environment.
Why oh why was this company allowed to behave as it did without any intervention from the regulatory body? Dumping sewage in rivers and the sea is outrageous for obvious reasons and should never never happen…..
I remember when water was privatised, Thatcher's government said that water needed more investment than government could afford, but private enterprise would be able to find it. No, predictably the opposite happened, insufficient investment, and profit extrction instead.
How dare the water company in the south threaten the Government with legal action if it’s nationalised after what they have done to rob the public of decent drinking facilities and polluting rivers and waterways . They are not fit for purpose and only interested in paying their shareholders. Not compatible with public service . Not to be trusted
Civilised countries have clean drinking water, clean rivers, clean beaches, clean seas. This country is civilised. American hedge fund managers are clearly not. Give us back our water .
We had such hopes when Labour came to power with an enormous majority. Starmer has been a great disappointment, seeming to fiddle around the edges rather than making the bold changes that we had hoped for. My generation were enthused by Corbyn's socialist policies; a proper Labour party. After the last two Tory-lite years, perhaps Burnham will have the courage of Atlee and Bevan and push through proper Labour policies. Why should a natural monopoly continue to be run for profit, after such obvious failings for decades? Why wasn't money set aside for upgrades and repairs? Why should foreign firms extract and privatise profits leaving us to nationalise the debt? Some people are getting very rich, while we can't even manage our capital's water supply. It's a shambles.
The 'deal' of Privatisation was that the private sector would take on the responsibilities of public services, and could keep any profit they made after maintaining an acceptable standard. Instead, in sector after sector, we have seen 40-odd years of profit extraction being put ahead of unacceptable service. It is long past time that we called in the other side of that deal: just as they happily took all the benefits when times were good, so they must take all the hit when their failings come home to roost.
The utilities have been loaded with debt, and asset stripped by successive owners. To go from a debt free company to collapse is unforgivable and seems to promote a world where private commerce can do anything with utilities, with no recourse from government.
There would be no attempt to secure another deal if there wasn’t something worth fighting for. PROFIT! The people of all political persuasions are being treated as a cash cow for trust funds, pension funds, banks, and investors with scant regard for the service they are supposed to be supplying. It’s not a surprise that very few countries have privatised utilities because profit comes before the service. Stop this now and nationalise, or make it non profit making and cut the CEO’s and SLT pay as well.
Water companies should never have been privatised. There is no competition and each one is a monopoly that has bumped up prices due their failure to invest in the infrastructure over many years when our population has increased and thousands more houses built. They have taken profits and paid themselves bonuses and ripped off the public. Enough is enough. We must clean up their dirty situation and public ownership is the only way
Margaret Thatcher sold the crown jewels when she privatised the utilities, selling them off at a knock down price and the services have got worse over time and costs have gone up. Privatisation hasn't worked. Those utilities used to belong to us and the profits should have been going into the Government's coffers not into some distant shareholder's pockets who don't live in this country. It's a case of out of sight, out of mind.
Our water has become a matter of national security, it is unfathomable that we sold our infrastructure to profiteers who have allowed it to crumble and polluted our rivers and sea whilst taking huge bonuses. It’s criminal, those who’ve been running the boards should be jailed.
New Government or just new faces? Water is precious & it is about time this Labour Government acknowledged this & brought it all, not just Thames, under our control. Maybe they're not up to it?
I agree with the above gentleman, however those same should also not be allowed to increase their customers bills to recover those fines, for every £10000 of fine imposed, they should also be made to legally reduce their customers billing by at least 2% minimum.
It's high time we stop this exploitation of our essential utilities. We've watched as the profits have been leached away off-shore and investment has been entirely absent. They had one job, to manage and maintain the water network. They've completely failed. They don't deserve to continue in control of such a valuable asset. They could've made a profit, continued with the operation and managed the infrastructure and avoided all of this, instead they got extremely greedy. We need rules against this and an example needs to be made. Get these utilities back into public ownership.
These water companies plead poverty yet pay massive bonuses to ceo/chairmen etc and continue to borrow to pay share holders. It’s a complete scam. As binface says make the head honchos swim in the sewage they discharge
It’s outrageous that England and Wales are the only countries in the WORLD that have privatised water, have allowed the deliberate polluting of our waterways with dangers to public health and destruction of wildlife, all for obscene amounts of profit. Stop it NOW
The water companies (and others) have been profiteering off us for far too long - not maintaining the infrastructures whilst taking all the money out in dividends and bonuses and then expecting the government to bail them out when in trouble. It needs to stop.
Thames is on such a low ebb, the interest on the bailout is far greater than the government can get which is furthered in keeping costs down by writing off a load of debt in administration or insolvency.
Water is a necessity for life. It should never have been sold off to foreign bidders. We warned that profit would come before quality of service and we were right. Whilst pocketing huge bonuses, the companies have neglected to invest in the maintenance and development of infrastructure resulting in polluted waters, parasites in drinking water and sky high prices for the customer. Enough is enough. Water is vital and should not be for profit for foreign investors.
Thames water is a disgrace. I live close to the Evenlode River and it's polluted. I cannot cross the road in my village without fear of twisting my ankle on a poorly constructed manhole cover. We pay for the water we use but Thames water is unable to produce enough for us to use as we wish.
Water companies should be brought into public ownership without any compensation, as they have been mismanaged solely for the benefit of the shareholders.
Come on Angela, this is the moment, Andy Burnham has swept to power promising real hope and change. Please do your part in bringing our water back in to public ownership and let these dirty privatised creditors get not a penny more.
I agree wholeheartedly with StevenIsle above Thames water also have blood on their hands as a child died as result of imbibing their filthy water containing sewage right into the river & eventually the sea The pollution they are causing is beyond despicable whilst the chief executive & her minions continue to walk away with vast sums & bonuses
Water should be brought into public ownership. We need investment into our national services and a stop to the terrible pollution of our rivers and seas. Water is a right not a money making opportunity for venture capitalists in far away countries.
An essential commodity such as water, which in any case will be a natural monopoly when supplied to a household, does not belong in the private, profit seeking sector. It should never have been privatised, and this piece of ideological fanaticism has produced a disaster in terms of pollution, cost of living to the public, and failure to anticipate the problems caused by climate change.
Privatisation of the water industry has been a disaster - for customers & for our seas & rivers. Thames Water is just the worst of a bad bunch, and should be taken into special administration immediately, to prevent more harm.
The model the water companies have followed is corrupt and parasitic. I believe fines commensurate with their wrong doing could make it cheap to renationalise and that this is the correct route.
As a Thames water customer this company is unfit for purpose. They whacked my bill up from £35/month to £220/month and were impossible to get any sense from. And they fill our rivers with sewage. Disgusting.
Water Provirisation has been another unacceptable disaster thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. All water companies including Thames Water should be in public hands. These companies have had more than enough money to ensure our infrastructure is properly maintained. Instead they decided to be greedy giving a fortune to Senior staff and shareholders and allowing loads of water leaks. Sewage being the worst. Sort it out Andy Burnham
Water companies should be fined at such punitive rates that they walk away from their contracts, taking their debts with them. Their manageeent should be imprisoned for persistent offending.
Leaving water in private hands is putting lives at risk, clean water is absolutely essential to human life and needs to be nationalised for public safety.
Water is a basic human right and it should never be for profit - when irresponsible companies are allowing billions of litres of water to spill away and not fixing the leaks, or doing repairs, or necessary improvements but are gladly taking profits and bonuses, the system needs to be changed - billionaires and investors should be involved for public good, not their wallets and bank accounts, so if it's taken back with them kicking and screaming, so be it, it must be an improved system where the public is protected and put first - for once!
The whole privatisation scam has ruined many organisations which are supposed to serve the public, the common good, and society as a whole - water chief amongst them. Bring the water industry, starting with Thames water, back into proper, full pubic ownership now
The sewage in our rivers & lakes is a disgrace to our country. The Victorian pipes need modernising & yet shareholders have been given massive payouts for years & not invested in more treatment works which are badly needed due to population growth. This has to stop. Water should be nationalised . No profits for shareholders .
Water services must come back into this countries ownership. The problem with Thatcher was she sold off all the utilities for a pittance. Burnham said on Monday, this country took a wrong turn in the '80s. All utilities must become owned by the people for the people.
Water services must come back into this countries ownership. The problem with Thatcher was she sold off all the utilities for a pittance. Burnham said on Monday, this country took a wrong turn in the '80s. All utilities must become owned by the people for the people.
Private water companies have a monopoly, Thames Water have proven time and time again they have put profits over customers, infrastructure investment and the enviroment. How is it Mr Weston and former CFO Alastair Cochran can get away with mass envirtomental pollution whilst if a member of the public dumped raw sewage you would be subject to unlimited fines and up to 5 years in prison under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Thames water are a bunch of crooks. People are getting really fed up with this the game is starting to be over for these criminals. As a single person with single use in London I pay £64 a month this is an absolute rip off. My neighbour in borough of Barnett Five bedroom house pays £30 a month what is going on with Thames water obvious scan and we the people are sick of paying the greedy crooks polluting and poisoning our water systems that affects all life .
Nationalising water companies is the only way to sort them out. The private sector has failed consumers over the years since the companies were allowed to be privatised. The shareholders should be penalised for their actions and the CEOs fined.
All service utilities should be in public ownership without any private or union interference, run on a marginal profit basis charging a fair price with all excesses put back into the utilities. Legislation must be enacted to guarantee utility companies remain in public ownership in perpetuity, managed & run on the above stated basis.
Self interest rules the world and there is no thought for the common good. It would seem that very few realise that seeking happiness for yourself, has never worked. It is is clear, that “True happiness (which everyone is seeking) lies in making others happy” The best we can do here, for the common good and clean water - is to nationalise!
I think this company shouls be bought back by government for what it's actually worth...how about £1.00. Shareholders have taken profit from a company that was not making any and made inadequate investment. Those in charge of water privatisation in goverment in the first place should also be named and shamed and never be allowed to stand for public office again. The dereluction of duty demonstrated by this nonsense is shameful.
Thay have robbed the public for to long ,it's time to put ALL UTILITIES BACK IN PUBLIC OWNERSHIP WE THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN ARE SICK OF BEING ROBBED MORE AND MORE EACH YEAR SO DO THE RIGHT THING AND GIVE BACK .
I think the idea of fining water companies into bankruptcy is a very appealing one. It may also depress the share values of other privatised utilities and enable further nationalisation.
The government has to wrest control of the water industry from greedy private hands. They have had years of exploitation to enrich themselves while the whole water system was systematically degraded. They get no compensation for this, they have extracted enough already. Time to take it back into public ownership at no public expense. Just vote it into law. You have a super majority. Just do it.
Drinking water is essential to life on earth. Privatisation was supposed to improve the quality of our water supply by investment, but we might as well have engaged highwaymen and fly tippers as we are being held to ransom and poisoned by chemicals and excretia. Our water situation is an international joke in the worst possible taste. Renatiinalise and recoup the ill-gotten bonuses!
In her book, "How Not to Die (Too Soon)", Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, uses England as a case study in how NOT to organise water supply. The section is titled " 'Profit Over Human Health' Systems".
We were much better when our water was nationalised my father and my-ex husband Both worked for TWA less leaks now nothing seems to function properly except greed and neglect
Years and years of plundering our water for massive payments to shareholders and top tier staff = dying rivers / filthy seas / failing Victorian infrastructure - nobody else would be able to run a business in that way - disgusting greed without a care for customers or the natural world - we must take it all back - most other countries manage their own water - Maggie Thatcher and her ridiculous sell off has been a tragedy and a disaster.
Clean water is a basic human right. It should not be a monopoly where our nature is being destroyed whilst the profits are privatised and the losses are nationalised. I’m sick to the back teeth of corporate greed ruining the lives of ordinary people and wildlife. No more
I find it hard to believe that water companies have been allowed to get away with taking large amounts of money and not doing the job they are paid to do. Who wrote their contracts?
There is only one solution to corrupt water companies public ownership, they have failed at the expense of people and failed to put all the necessary solutions to prevent pollution of our environment whilst taking money to fill their own pockets absolute parasites.
Water falls out of the sky onto the land we all live on. It cannot be owned by anyone. It belongs to us all and should not be commodified to make profit for the few at huge cost to everyone living here and to the detriment of all the creatures living in water courses and lakes. We depend on the natural world. We must care for the precious resource that is every drop of water. This has proved to be impossible when ownership is in the hands of private companies simply seeking profit.
Absolutely silly price rises,going up ridiculously in past 2 years. Can't shop around you just have to pay. Water companies have been paying CEOs and shareholders and it's the customers paying and they don't want to pay fines for polluting. How is this a model for a company? How has this been allowed to happen?
Privatisation has done nothing, and never could do anything in the case of water, to increase competition which was *suppposed* to be the main benefit of this misguided policy. The only people to have benefited are management and shareholders. Reject the Thames Water deal in its entirety!
Shareholders know that they invest at a risk and should not be bailed out. Water companies have given bonuses for poor management and have decimated our rivers and coasts with sewage. Public ownership is the sensible and cheapest solution for the tax payer in the long term and is also in the interest of National Security. Allowing foreign ownership of a crucial resource is madness.
The water companies have proved that privatisation was a life-threatening mistake. Water must be brought back into public ownership asap. Let the companies go bust and prosecute the bosses for endangering public health.
This disaster has gone on too long. It is a legacy of Mrs Thatcher’s plans that took away so much of the public’s share of decision-making and gave it to the wrong people who have made off with the profits, or stayed here to laud it over those who remain.
I can see absolutely no reason for not nationalising all of the water companies. The latter have consistently failed to update the industry’s infrastructure whilst increasing our bills massively. In addition, they continue to pollute our waterways and, in some instances, are failing to provide customers with water at all. I have to ask what exactly we are paying for - it seems to shareholders’ f do dividends and not much else. It is tempting to suggest that the privatised water business as a whole looks remarkably like a scam…
Please Please let's not mess about anymore. Let's bring Thames Water back into public ownership where it belongs. Then bring all the other water companies with it.
Are water bill went up because of the likes of Thames Water,United utilities etc because all these companies only see is profit not the safety of the water environment.
Water should be publicly owned and regulated for the public good as the elemental necessity it is. It is a travesty and an outrage the way it has been used as a means of profiting from a human need and not even keeping it fit for purpose. It is immoral and the failure to protect its cleanliness should be viewed as a criminal offence.
Water is essential to life, is a natural monopoly, and used to belong to us all. But unlike every other country in the world, these vital assets were sold off to asset-strippers who borrowed massively against their value to pay out millions to themselves and their shareholders.
While letting the infrastructure crumble, poisoning our environment, killing our wildlife. They can't even keep the taps running.
Why should they keep the profits but the public take the losses?
Why should we pay for their mismanagement?
It's a matter of national security: Water, a natural monopoly, essential to life. It's time we took it back into public ownership (not just "control").
We should never have thought for one second about privatising water like we have. It's a natural source which is absolutely vital to life. Prime Ministers like Margaret Thatcher rode roughshod over us. Banks should not own our water. It shows the strength of the vicious predators who have been at the top stealing this precious resource for decades. They're soulless and evil.
We should never have thought for one second about privatising water like we have. It's a natural source which is absolutely vital to life. Prime Ministers like Margaret Thatcher rode roughshod over us. Banks should not own our water. It shows the strength of the vicious predators who have been at the top stealing this precious resource for decades. They're soulless and evil.
This is a failed business. Those who invested in it made a foolish decision, so they should lose their money as with any other foolish investment. Simple
The privatisation of the water companies was theft from the tax payer of a public utility.We have paid enough in order enrich investors.Please take back our property and ensure that we pay nothing more.
Agree that the water companies should be fined for their pollution of rivers and beaches to the point of bankruptcy. The executives should lose their homes in partial compensation for their company's loss, while they treated it as their own private piggy bank.
I really hope you’ve watched the documentary ‘Dirty Business’ - it will tell you all you need to know.
I support Count Binfaces proposition that all water board executives should be made to swim in as British River - but I’ll add that it specific river should be chosen by water campaigners.
I also challenge you, Angela, to prep posted to swim by your decisions…
Confidence in having a consistent fresh water supply to drink and services which look after our environment is such a fundamental need and expectation. I strongly believe this can only be achieved by public ownership. We have been very let down by these companies for too long. Services integral to our society and daily lives should be publicly owned.
It’s disgusting that this has happened. Profit should not come before putting your house in order. In this day and age you should have found away to dispose of waste properly. Just because it cost money you have not done this.
The shareholders have been priority so far with their huge profits while the rest of us struggle to keep them in that lifestyle. Any profits should go back into the system to improve it. No more sewage overflows into our rivers, it’s a disgrace.
The privatised water utilities are parasites. Water is the most essential commodity, the source of all life and essential for sustaining life. How can this be in the hands of private companies whose only objective is to screw the public for every penny they can get? Re-nationalise it now along with all other essential infrastructure.
This is the moment to do the right thing for people of UK. The privatisation of water companies has been a complete disaster….there is no benefit for people or nature. Please do not accept whatever deal the creditors are offering. It has to change..we all deserve clean water, rivers, services that are run for everyone: not to line pockets of a few. Please…do the right thing for the people, for our waters, for our nature.
Water companies have made a mockery of customers and the government and particularly ofwat and EA who are clearly complicit and compromised. They should be allowed to fail and be renatofor nothing with the debts incurred by the management and shareholders with no thought to their duties to customers so they must foot the bill!
The customers of Thames Water will have to foot the bill for infrastructure maintenance and improvements that have been ignored for years whilst shareholders have used this essential utility as a mechanism to extract public money and load the company with debt. If we are expected to pay for this, there is no way these vultures should profit.
The continued privatisation of public utilities is the most obvious way that the public can see that members of governments during the past 45 years have taken payments - often in the form of highly paid “advisory roles” in the companies after the minister has left office in return for allowing private companies to provide terrible service at the highest price that they can get away with.
The growing understanding of this mechanism is part of what is making the conventional political parties unelectable. Whilst individual ministers early on this era got away with it, because so few people understood the wholesale theft from the people and their nation, the growing comprehension of this corruption of public life means that increasingly, current ministers do not, at least in terms of reputation and future career succeed - which explains the increasing turnover in high officials, and the fact that they are not missed by us when they have gone.
We know now that the private capture of public utilities is a robbery - the evidence is abundant. The situation with Thames Water is absolutely farcical, and anyone who helps to allow it to stay in private hands will be tainted by their actions. Please do not be a facilitator of it for hoped-for future reward. It won’t work for you.
It’s scandalous that wealthy companies and individuals are making money out of our water companies while polluting the waterways and not attending to the systems in place to maintain safe water for everyone and clean waterways for the future of the planet!
All UK water companies must return to full public ownership. In Deal where I live, Southern Water has poisoned the sea with regular sewage dumps. It’s so full of e-coli that we have not swim in it for two years and counting. In January at Camber Sands in East Sussex, Southern Water’s plant filter broke, releasing millions of plastic beads into the sea, a catasphrophe causing plastic pollution and untold damage to wildlife and it took Southern Water 2 weeks to admit it was their fault.
The water companies are a disgrace and do not serve the public, only their shareholders. Nationalisation is the only answer to save our seas and rivers from non stop pollution.
Instead of letting Water Companies get away with not only being able to still operate after getting into so much debt, and allowing the continued pollution of our lovely waters killing fish and making people ill through using the water, plus giving the Fat Cat "Share Holders" even more money for doing so!!! Thames Water should be put into Special Measures in the first instance and then taken away from this US Company and brought back to Public Ownership. Please act in the interests of the Public and STOP THIS LUNACY. Thank you.
Any debts accumulated by the company must be settled by shareholders or written off. The tax-payers MUST NOT be saddled with debts accrued through financial mismanagement / over-paying bonuses and dividends.
The King of the North must take our water back! The people have paid too much for a poor service. The investors and poor management do not deserve to be compensated!
Water belongs to us the people living here not some shareholders of a company we don’t trust and who have constantly poisoned our rivers etc. We need Water to be renationalised now!
NO PROFITS SHOULD BE HANDED OUT TO SHAREHOLDERS AND INCREASES OF CEO ETC SALARIES SHOULD BE FORBIDDEN UNTIL THEY HAVE BROUGHT TW UP TO MODERN DAY STANDARDS. It’s daylight robbery and extremely unfair that WE have to pay! Shocking!
I, and many others, are furious with the state of our rivers, seas and lack of confidence in our water companies, often worrying if our water is safe to drink! For too long there has been a culture of profits before quality of service and it is unacceptable. I pay a lot of money each month for water services and sewage services-Why? I’m fearful to drink the water out of my taps, I can no longer swim in our filthy seas and the state of our beautiful rivers makes me want to cry!! And I’m paying for this!!!!!
The report on how at least 5 times more water than any hose ban is wasted every single day due to faulty water pipes all across the UK. Also, there have been no new water reservoirs built since the 60s. The water companies need to be in public hands so that the infrastructure is kept up. The private need to fix it all - and if they can't then they must be disolved and come into public hands. We also need MORE RESERVOIRS! It is a joke that with the rainfall we have in the UK in the year we are stuggling for water. Plus, AI data centres need to have a water recycling structure to cool.
I firmly believe that all water companies should be nationalised. Privatisation of this sector has only led to companies putting profit over safety. This has resulted in higher prices for the consumer and increasingly polluted rivers and seas.
Thames Water deserves no more chances. This is Corporate Greed at its worst! No more deals - action - we have no choice - we need and demand that Thames Water and the rest of them are all allowed to go bankrupt. It’s been greed and nothing but greed at the expense of those who are held to ransom - their customers.
Water should never have been privatised. The water companies have all put their shareholders and profit before customers and have exploited their position as monopolies. Nationalise them all now!
Water is an essential for life and hygiene- it should not be a vehicle for profit and wealth and should be considered a national interest. Thames Water is not fit for purpose.
Our Water company, despite consistent pollution, will pay themselves handsomely but increase our bills by 30%. Our pension increases each year but all our bills increase more!
Wholeheartedly agree! Our water systems were flogged off by Margaret thatcher for a fraction of what they were worth and, despite neglect, mismanagement, greed, corruption and shameful pollution, have made fortunes for individuals and foreign hedge funds. Clean water is a basic human need. Our waterways and seas should be healthy and protected. No one should profit from our water!
As a Thames water customer my bill has increased by 50% in three years, in addition I am being expected to fund shareholders and fund a reservoir that will devastate the local area and I am being asked not to use something i am forced to pay for which is a fundamental human right. We are vastly losing control of what we pay for which is a human right. This must stop
I strongly object to Thames Water putting up prices , paying directors bonuses whilst the service deteriorates year on year through inadequate investment in infrastructure.
Renationalise the water companies (and all utilities) without any compensation. They were not Thatchers to sell off in the first place so, in effect, they were stolen from us. Give them back!
This is our chance to take back control of a natural monopoly which should never have been sold off. We need water to live and privatisation has utterly failed. There should be no more chances!
The utilities privatisation experiment has failed the public, especially the supply of water where the so-called advantage of competition is non-existent. Time to return water to public control.
Thames Water has been run fraudulently to serve the interests of the CEO, Executives and shareholders by paying them vast sums of money which should have been invested in the infrastructure; whilst feeling safe in the expectation that whenever the company repeatedly runs out of cash to pay the staff and deliver a basic service to the customers, the UK Govt. will have NO OPTION but to repeatedly bail it out by an injection of cash. The UK Water Industry is a mafia style operation, with the collusion of the regulator. People who worked for the regulator are later rewarded by being recruited into highly paid jobs in Water Companies. The regulator has allowed Water Companies to continue to dump raw sewage and breach their contracts with their customers, with impunity whilst allowing the Water Companies to increase the Customer's Bills. ENOUGH is ENOUGH - Thames Water CANNOT BE TRUSTED and MUST BE TAKEN INTO PUBLIC CONTROL NOW. There should also be a criminal investigation into the Company's operation and the collusion of the regulator's staff (and former staff who now work in the water industry).
The Government MUST ENSURE that the Customers are NOT made to pay for the Water Industry's fraudulent operations and the Regulator's TOTAL FAILURE to control them.
TAKE Thames Water INTO PUBLIC CONTROL NOW, to send a clear message to all other Water companies to clean up their acts.
Water Companies can be left in private ownership - just make it illegal for them to operate without an annually renewable UK Government Operating Licence, with strict performance criteria attached and strict limits on when and how much can be paid in salaries, bonuses and dividends; strictly linked to the companies performance against strict criteria (sewage pollution, fixing leaks, maintenance and investment in new infrastructure).
When a Private Water Company fails to meet it's set criteria, it's Operator's Licence can be revoked and all assets transferred to UK Govt. Water (without penalty). An under performing Private Water Company should be treated just like an unroadworthy / untaxed / uninsured car being driven on the road - it should be immediately confiscated and crushed.
UK Consumers have been forced to pay too high Water Bills and have been FAILED by successive Governments and the REGULATOR, who have allowed Water Companies to get away with fraud and asset stripping by borrowing large sums of money using the infrastructure as security and channelling that money out of the company to be paid as dividends.
Water should never have been privatised. It’s a utility that needs to be in public hands. Not with shareholders taking profits. Surely the general public are the share holders of a necessary resource.
You have literally drained Thames Water from its ability to serve its customers - the public who owned it back in the day. We have already paid for your personal financial gains, why should we pay further for your insidious greed and lack of ethics and governance.
Thanks for listening and taking action to take this essential service back into public control. Water management has to be the most important asset going forward and we will need every penny to rebuild the infrastructure necessary to supply clean water for all of us without damaging the land and waterways we live with. Please ensure that this is a cross party matter and ensure that this industry can never be a profit making machine going forward and all money paid by the public is used to maximum efficiency.
Water is too precious a resource for it to be in the hands of people simply wanting to make a profit. Water is needed by everyone and every creature and plant. It is the lifeblood of our planet and needs protection not wasting or polluting. Please help us to cherish it, for all our sakes.
The water companies should never have been privatised - water is an essential for living and we have no choice in who we choose to supply our water. It is just a money making project for the rich at our expense. ALL the water companies should be taken back into government control and no compensation should be paid. The shareholders have been bleeding us dry for years.
Water is a precious resource and should be brought back into public ownership and never be in the hands of private investors who will not protect the interests of those who depend on it staying accessible, clean and affordable.
Please protect our water, our most precious resource on this planet. It is for everyone, it is not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, or wasted and polluted.
We were told private companies can run services better and cheaper than the government, this is not proven to be untrue. Costs have risen, profits have risen, but water quality and service have fallen. Our water is polluted or drinking water not secure, End privatisation, water is not for profit, it belongs to us all.
Public Utilities should not be owned by private companies whose role is profit for shareholders. The history of the last decades since privatisation has clearly demonstrated this error.
Labour must keep explaining to the public that Privatisation of any public service is a Lie. (Its good for a few rich shareholder parasites but at the direct expense of the general public) The water companies should be held up and publicly exhibited as the proof. Then look at the privatisation of the NHS. Eye services and ear services already gone to self interested private companies, among many others
Water needs to be made public owned too much is going to share holders and not enough to environment The standard has dropped and rivers are being poluted drinking water has been getting undrinkable
More broadly, in addition to the sewage discharge disgrace across all the water companies we have the loss of 15% or so of drinking water from leaking mains at the same time as hosepipe bans. Rather than fix leaks the companies have reduced water pressure so that our supply pressure is FAR lower than in other countries and we can’t have a decent shower. If British Gas can supply gas without leaking it every where it should be MUCH easier not to lose water.
Profits before services is their mantra. Water is a right, not something which can be bought & sold by billionaires to fund their increasingly extravagant lifestyles
Thames water has failed to keep up with repairs and only increase prices above inflation for money orientated investors this should be a public service run by public all utilities should be
We’ve got storm tanks overflowing in a heatwave, and the rivers are too full of phosphates to top up the reservoirs. Meanwhile shareholders and top execs are getting rich on dividends and bonuses, paid for by our sky high bills.
Our rivers have a voice! It is time to stop polluting our waters! We are killing the wildlife and our children are unable to enjoy the nature that they deserve! I am ashamed looking at our dead dirty river, that I learnt to swim in, and catch sticklebacks as a child. What sort of country are we to continue to pour untreated sewage in our rivers and oceans? Profit before nature? How did this happen? Margaret Thatcher’s government had no right to sell our water! 💦 You can now put this injustice to rights if you wish to! Please do!!
It is quite clear that privatisation is a disaster (as all the intelligent and sensible people said when Thatcher started this appalling process). ALL public utilities should be back in public hands, not just Water.
The privatisation experiment has failed the users in many sectors: water, post, railways, energy. All investment ‘products’ come with a warning before an investor commits their funds: ‘the value of shares can fall as well as rise’. The UK is the only country with privatised water, a NATURAL RESOURCE. Missing this opportunity to renationalise Thames Water will guarantee a huge defection of Labour supporters to the Greens in the next election.
Who in their right mind allows FOREIGN investment companies to own a vital service like water without which we die!!!. Take back ALL services that belong to the public ultimately since they fund it through their bills. Thames waters owners have a shameful history with complete disregard for its customers and for the UK environment, their only goal, profit. For once lets put people first. But unless Thames water improves its infrastructure, builds new reservoirs, improves the ones already in service and stops giving itself massive pay rises and bonuses it is on a slippery slope with little chance of continuing. Already in debt by billions, Thames Waters foreign owners have fleeced the UK population without once putting back profits to benefit the people OF THIS COUNTRY. Don't even question the ethics of taking back what rightfully belongs to the people of this country, it should not be used as a tool to make money for foreign investors!! Insanity
Long overdue to stop being mugged by these greedy parasites, who want more whether they’re in profit or, more likely, in self created debt. All while directors and shareholders continue to milk the public while allowing river lake and sea pollution without punishment.
The behaviour of the management and shareholders of Thames Water has been predatory and venal. They are a disgrace and should no longer be allowed to pollute our waterways whilst constantly increasing their charges to consumers!
The water companies have proved themselves absolutely useless at protecting our waterways from pollution. How on earth have they managed to accumulate so much debt. They are not fit for purpose. Please don’t allow them any leeway. Take them back in to public ownership.
For this or any other water company to cling on for grim death to their autonomy simply because of their and their own shareholders interests is not only obscene but is a violation and destitution of their public trust and responsibility.
Clean water, properly managed, is a basic right and something I feel strongly should be in public ownership. An elite should never profit from other people’s suffering and poor health.
This ‘neoliberal’ farce has gone on long enough anis a proven failure. Please take back the Thames Water disaster and recognise the folly of privatising monopolies.
The pollution created . And rising costs for the customers paying for it is fix is only one of the failings,.that is unacceptable while they are claiming huge bonuses for the share holders, that should have been spent on keeping the environment , rivers and seas clean , that create a health risk for the public that are expecting and paying for it .
we want our utilities nationalised we are fed up with the exorbitant charges we are charged by private utility companies, the only care about their shareholders.
There isn't a single privatised utility that works better under privatisation. The public were conned and are being ripped off constantly. Take Thames Water back into public ownership and prove to all privatised utilities you mean business. Do not use taxpayer's money to bail them out. Tie up public ownership so tightly that utilities can't be sold off again once taxpayers' money has improved them.
The regulatory body should be disbanded and their jobs given to people who understand how important their work is. As a member of the public I rely on appointed regulatory bodies to do the job for which they are appointed.
Not supplying the customers with what they are paying for . A safe clean environment that is not a health risk to them that expected it as they face increasing bills for a failed fix,
There is no justification for private ownership of any public services, especially one as vital as Water. We cannot be held to ransom, be overcharged for a poor and dangerous service, and then be expected to pay more for it to be put right.
For once, please strike a blow for democracy against the robber barons who have systematically asset-stripped an essential resource that should never have been privatised. Water is an essential to life and decency and cannot be entrusted to those who seek to exploit everything in search of more profit for the few.
Privatisation was always a scam! How can a utility that has to pay shareholders be cheaper? Just corrupt MPs taking bribes to sell us down the river! It's got to be stopped now!
A law should be passed to bring in auditors to discover if shareholders have made back their initial investments as shareholders, and if they have they should not be compensated.
The current situation is ludicrous. Privatisation was about channeling money to the wealthy and wealthy corporations, many owned offshore. What is needed now is bold action to make water work for the people of this country, delivering significant investment in infrastructure, cleaning of rivers and the sea and reduced cost for consumers. Bold action. Management not oversight.
Water companies should pay such a high fine/penalty equal to at least the total dividends and bonuses paid out of their funds since they were privatised to put our money back where it belongs- investing in the infrastructure and new technologies.
Thames Water shareholders have milked the public for far too long with plenty of money going into their pockets rather than being used to improve vital infrastructure which is absolutely shameful.
We're just sick of seeing the services and quality of the water worsening while the bills get higher and higher. Creditors deserve to loose control. They got themselves in a muddy ditch and it's time they stay there. Let's take back control!
Privatised water companies should be the same as water companies in Scotland , owned by the people run as a private company so that profits go back into the company and not shareholders pockets.
Please do not allow Thames water creditors to retain control of water authority. They have forfeited the right to control a public utility by allowing the water supply to be polluted and without regular and necessary msintenance.
The behaviour of these companies is criminal. Or money has been taken and our environment has been devastated. Rivers are a danger to life and we now have a hosepipe ban because no provision has been made for the inevitable effects of climate change and hot weather. Managers should be prosecuted!
For too long water companies have been allowed to get away with horrendous pollution issues. I live in the South West where we already have the second highest water bills in the country but too few reservoirs. We used to have blue flag beaches but I believe this standard has now been removed. Water companies need to be held to account for causing illness ( and even death) to bathers using seas and rivers, lack of maintenance in treatment works, lack of building new infrastructure to cope with all the new housing developments and causing disruption to water supplies as in the Devon Brixham incident of 2024.
The water companies have caused this problem so they should pay. The water companies should be brought back into public control and there should be strict regulations, to ensure thid pollution from sewers does not happen again.
I very strongly agree that all water companies should be nationalised. Those that are profiting from their investments should loose their money when we run our water companies.
As part of an army of community water-testers, I'm fed up with seeing our rivers polluted over and over again, while the companies charged with protecting them treat the public as a cash cow, creaming off record profits and bonuses while neglecting the work we pay them to do.
These shareholders have milked privatisation to death by failing to invest in the necessary infrastructure and loading Thames Water with debt through pure greed. Such behaviour must have serious consequences. Re-nationalisation MUST be that consequence.
It’s time that the water companies share holders and executives were brought to justice. The pollution and poisoning of customers needs to be paid for from their profiteering. Do not be fooled by whatever promises they make for the future - they need to be punished and pay reparations for their wanton actions.
I don't understand How a corporation, usually not British ,can take over a company ,load it full of debt, whilst paying executives,and shareholders vast amount in salaries and dividends, not fulfill their obligations to the customer When tasked can say " OK give us a pile of money ,take over the mess and we will go away "
Water (and energy) companies should never have been privatised in the first place. You have an opportunity to right this wrong and national disaster - we urge you to please do the right thing.
Privatisation of water was a disgrace. It’s a monopoly. The private companies are only interested in their shareholders. It’s racketeering at its best! Consumers, and the environment, are being fleeced to line the pockets of corporate big business. It must end!!
Private Equity take risks & get rewarded. They’ve taken £Bn out to reward themselves & delivered year on year worsening services. The current Ofwat monitoring framework is not fit for purpose. Our rivers are dying, polluting discharges are not punished. The whole system needs a radical rethink.
Our privatised water industry has become a cash extraction device that is harming people, the environment and the legitimate economy. It could easily be turned from a liability in private ownership, to a valuable public asset, wisely spending bills from 62 million people to create a clean and healthy future. It won't happen in private hands.
Foreign ownership, foreign profits, foreign mismanagement and yet we pay their fines through our water bills. Get a grip government and protect your electorate from this foreign invasion. Do your job.
Public ownership of water companies is the only way to control excessive sewage discharges and maintenance of clean rivers and waterways. Our health & environment are too important to leave to wealthy CEO’s who only care about money.
Public ownership is the most viable option in terms of security, cost and can be a source of revenue for the state . Can you get back hold of the profit making land registry whilst you are at it please?
Capitalism is supposed to reward success not failure. All of our water companies were handed over without debt and substantial assets . These have been stripped and sold with debt substituting real value.
Utilities should not be privatised, experience has shown that it doesn’t work and that so called regulators are toothless. Bring back into public ownership and stop ruthless profiteering
Water is a precious and essential resource. Private companies have been given far too long already to show their lack of commitment to the public who need this resource. Please put water back into public ownership.
After decades of prioritising shareholder dividends over essential infrastructure, Thames Water has collapsed into a cycle of systemic failure characterised by a staggering £15 billion plus debt mountain, industry-leading leakage rates, and the chronic discharge of raw sewage into the River Thames. Placing the utility into Special Administration is the only viable path to strip away the "brass neck" of financial mismanagement, ensuring that public health and environmental protection are finally prioritised over protected creditor returns and corporate negligence.
Water companies are a disgrace, they should all be brought back into public ownership. The private sector has again emphasised that profits for shareholders is the priority and not providing their contractoral obligations , truly corrupt and disgraceful. The management should be stripped of the money they have paid to themselves for stealing from profits they never actually made, call it fraud or corruption it’s totally unacceptable.
The UK was once widely know as the 'dirty man of Europe', then we joined the EU and had to stop the discharge of untreated sewage into rivers and onto beaches. Numerous 'Blue Flags' were earned in coastal resorts around the UK. Then we left the EU, investment fell, and the dividends to shareholders matched the sum needed for restoration of standards; about £76 billion. This is shameless profiteering. They had their chance and greed prevailed, now water must be returned to public ownership.
I think it is now time to return this company to the public domain. A sum of £20 billion debt is surely one step too far. The share holders should not reap benefits from poor management and blatant disregard of the problems they are creating re the sewage discharges and pollution. A government golden share is not an option.
Water is an essential for everyone and should not be owned or controlled by a private group of people. It must be controlled in the interests of the public by the government.
I'd much prefer an inefficient public sector water corp, where PAYE staff pay their taxes than see that money being stripped out through dividends and debt structures (often offshore), by overseas private equity. Not only do UK customers benefit but also the the state & exchequer. Privatisation of monopoly sectors has failed, period. The debt these companies have racked up is a national disgrace. Prof David Hall from Grenwich University has publicly said that ALL the money invested has been raised by bill payers alone anyway since privatisation.
It is frankly unbelievable that something as crucial to our continued existence as water should ever have been put in the hands of private companies who exist for the profit of shareholders. These companies have delivered nothing and been repeatedly bailed out at the public’s expense. All of them should be immediately nationalised
Thatcher and her greedy cronies didn't ask the people of this country, could our precious publicly owned utilities be sold off. Our NHS is the next to go. I pray our new government puts a stop to all this. Bring it all back under one umbrella. Make the private companies pay, take it all back for nowt.
Private companies should be nowhere near public services. The business aims are completely incompatible. It's been shown in every sector that private companies siphon off public funds to line their pockets and the public is always worse off. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is either insanity or wilful negligence! Reject the deal and bring TW into public ownership.
Water is a human right; not for profit! All the water companies should be dissolved and all water infrastructure taken into public ownership. Why should we take on their debts? We have been paying hefty bills all these years and they have been lining shareholders pockets with fake profits, while failing to invest in proper infrastructure to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency or even just deal with our sewage hygienically,
I’m sure following the recommendations in this letter will not only lead to the best outcomes for customers of Thames Water and their future provision but will also reflect well on you as a new minister and the Burnham government. A bold move and the right move.
I want profits from essential utilities to be used to improve those utilities - not paid out to hedge funds, shareholders and excessive management salaries and bonuses.
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Steven Isle 1 day ago
Water companies should be fined for pollution into bankruptcy and then renationalised for nowt. The debts were incurred by the management and shareholders_ let them foot the bill!
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Alan Carn 1 day ago
Their obscene profiteering has gone unchallenged for too long.
If chief executives had been threatened with custodial sentences, there would have been immediate action.
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Ian Miller 1 day ago
Enough is enough. What could possibly be holding you back from doing the right thing ??.
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Marion Judd 1 day ago
Thames Water have taken the piss for too long. Please nationalise Thames water and get rid of them for good! We cannot have our rivers and seas polluted for a moment longer!
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David McKay 1 day ago
All water companies with debts should be dissolved immediately and all/any assets transferred to public ownership. All recipients of bonus payments should be ordered by court to return all payments received which should be returned to the public purse to start funding upgrading of all water systems.
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Jenny Dyson 1 day ago
The shareholders have been making great profits out of the privatisation of water. We the tax payers must not accept any terms whereby the shareholders are not held accountable
for the dreadful mess they have left behind!
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Jamie O’Brien 20 hours ago
I remember the mantra of Maggie Thacher’s government on privatisation, “I’ll be better for everyone, and competition will drive down prices, knowing full well that sell our utilities to big investors only results in making them richer to the detriment of cost of living and health. Conservative have nearly turn our great nation into a third world country.
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Sylvia Kelly 20 hours ago
It is obvious that the present owners are incompetent and don't deserve another attempt, it's a possibility they could make matters worse.
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norman shrigley 14 hours ago
Water companies should be find for pollution into bankruptcy and then renationalised for nowt. The debts were incurred by the management and shareholders_ let them foot the bill!
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Jennifer Perera 14 hours ago
I’m sick of the pollution from the water companies corrupting the environment. We all need clean water and Thames Water, among others, are doing their best to ensure we won’t get it.
The CEO’s should not be receiving their immense bonuses and should be cleaning up their mess.
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Geoff Cain 14 hours ago
Water companies bosses should lose there jobs and be prosecuted for polluting are waterways. When you fine them it’s us the public that pay the fines 🤮
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Peta 13 hours ago
The water companies have breached the law, poisoned water, polluted our environment and awarded themselves millions for doing it. They should not be compensated for this awful record, they should be behind bars!
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Sue Thomas 13 hours ago
The Government needs to act to protect the general public from the harm that profiteering water companies have inflicted upon communities and their environments. These companies have proved beyond doubt that they are not trustworthy and need to be taken fully into public ownership. Starting with Thames Water who are a continuing disgrace and have taken out so much money that they will never be in a position to rectify the situation. Company greed fulfilment should not be the purpose of rising water bills whilst services fail and pollution increases. Please do not be seduced by the offer of a Golden Ticket.
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Michele Martin 13 hours ago
The latest UK national risk register puts water outages as the No risk, escalating this issue into one of critical national importance. With the world getting riskier, allies becoming threats, we can no longer allow a vital national asset & basic requirement for life to be threatened by foreign corporations that put profits above the Health of our people & environment.
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Mary Abi Antoun 13 hours ago
Why oh why was this company allowed to behave as it did without any intervention from the regulatory body? Dumping sewage in rivers and the sea is outrageous for obvious reasons and should never never happen…..
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Rod Dalitz 12 hours ago
I remember when water was privatised, Thatcher's government said that water needed more investment than government could afford, but private enterprise would be able to find it. No, predictably the opposite happened, insufficient investment, and profit extrction instead.
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Christine Adams 12 hours ago
How dare the water company in the south threaten the Government with legal action if it’s nationalised after what they have done to rob the public of decent drinking facilities and polluting rivers and waterways . They are not fit for purpose and only interested in paying their shareholders. Not compatible with public service . Not to be trusted
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Catherine Archer 1 day ago
I agree, wholeheartedly water company should be fined into bankruptcy, and then re nationalized for nothing
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Margaret Thomas 1 day ago
Civilised countries have clean drinking water, clean rivers, clean beaches, clean seas. This country is civilised. American hedge fund managers are clearly not. Give us back our water .
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Andy Stewart-Wright 1 day ago
Shut down Thames Water now!
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Joshua Taylor 1 day ago
We had such hopes when Labour came to power with an enormous majority. Starmer has been a great disappointment, seeming to fiddle around the edges rather than making the bold changes that we had hoped for. My generation were enthused by Corbyn's socialist policies; a proper Labour party. After the last two Tory-lite years, perhaps Burnham will have the courage of Atlee and Bevan and push through proper Labour policies. Why should a natural monopoly continue to be run for profit, after such obvious failings for decades? Why wasn't money set aside for upgrades and repairs? Why should foreign firms extract and privatise profits leaving us to nationalise the debt? Some people are getting very rich, while we can't even manage our capital's water supply. It's a shambles.
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Alex Scott 1 day ago
The 'deal' of Privatisation was that the private sector would take on the responsibilities of public services, and could keep any profit they made after maintaining an acceptable standard. Instead, in sector after sector, we have seen 40-odd years of profit extraction being put ahead of unacceptable service. It is long past time that we called in the other side of that deal: just as they happily took all the benefits when times were good, so they must take all the hit when their failings come home to roost.
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Roger Jackson 1 day ago
This would be a very strong signal from a new Government!
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Mary Taylor 1 day ago
Water privatisation is theft.
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Robert Curbishley 1 day ago
The utilities have been loaded with debt, and asset stripped by successive owners. To go from a debt free company to collapse is unforgivable and seems to promote a world where private commerce can do anything with utilities, with no recourse from government.
There would be no attempt to secure another deal if there wasn’t something worth fighting for. PROFIT! The people of all political persuasions are being treated as a cash cow for trust funds, pension funds, banks, and investors with scant regard for the service they are supposed to be supplying. It’s not a surprise that very few countries have privatised utilities because profit comes before the service. Stop this now and nationalise, or make it non profit making and cut the CEO’s and SLT pay as well.
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David Hornsby 1 day ago
Water should be publicly-owned! Nationalise it ASAP!
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Teresa cookson 1 day ago
We are the only country in the world who doesn’t own their own water . End it now
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Simon Duquenoy 1 day ago
Water companies should never have been privatised. There is no competition and each one is a monopoly that has bumped up prices due their failure to invest in the infrastructure over many years when our population has increased and thousands more houses built. They have taken profits and paid themselves bonuses and ripped off the public.
Enough is enough. We must clean up their dirty situation and public ownership is the only way
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Carole Meldrum 1 day ago
Margaret Thatcher sold the crown jewels when she privatised the utilities, selling them off at a knock down price and the services have got worse over time and costs have gone up. Privatisation hasn't worked. Those utilities used to belong to us and the profits should have been going into the Government's coffers not into some distant shareholder's pockets who don't live in this country. It's a case of out of sight, out of mind.
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Sally Teeling 1 day ago
Let's try to bring Labour back to some semblance of the party it was. Stop these greedy corporations owning everything!
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Mark Butler 1 day ago
Our water has become a matter of national security, it is unfathomable that we sold our infrastructure to profiteers who have allowed it to crumble and polluted our rivers and sea whilst taking huge bonuses. It’s criminal, those who’ve been running the boards should be jailed.
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Jane Stone 1 day ago
Water is the very essence of life and should belong to the public not for a few greedy shareholders.
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Alan Oliver 1 day ago
New Government or just new faces? Water is precious & it is about time this Labour Government acknowledged this & brought it all, not just Thames, under our control. Maybe they're not up to it?
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Jenny Templeton 1 day ago
Water is essential and should not have been privatised
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Samantha Forbes 1 day ago
Privatisation has not worked once again.
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Anthony Carter 1 day ago
This is quite correct. Enough profiteering at the expense of our environment!
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Judy Thurlow 1 day ago
It's shocking the way water is being weaponised in this way. It should never have been privatised.
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Judy Thurlow 1 day ago
It's shocking the way water is being weaponised in this way. It should never have been privatised.
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Judy Thurlow 1 day ago
Disgusting capitism
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Judy Thurlow 1 day ago
Shocking immoral privatism of a basic need.
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Glenn Morris 1 day ago
I agree with the above gentleman, however those same should also not be allowed to increase their customers bills to recover those fines, for every £10000 of fine imposed, they should also be made to legally reduce their customers billing by at least 2% minimum.
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Edward Winter 1 day ago
I agree with Steven
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Neil McCart 1 day ago
Renationalise ASAP.
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Terry Gough 1 day ago
Dont let them back in , only wantiing bigger hand outs and dont want prosecutions for contamination of our water ways 😡😡
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Jean McAulay 1 day ago
Water companies behave disgracefully & are all about profit & pollution, it has to stop now!
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Rachael Sharples 1 day ago
Water companies should see clean Water as a basic human right and should be committed to this not profits
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Miriam Margolyes 1 day ago
Thames Water is as dirty as the water of the rivers it has defiled. Nationalise please asap.
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John Hinds 1 day ago
I agree, bankrupt the water companies by suing them the billions of pounds damage them caused in our rivers and coastal waters.
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Tom O'Donovan 1 day ago
It's high time we stop this exploitation of our essential utilities. We've watched as the profits have been leached away off-shore and investment has been entirely absent. They had one job, to manage and maintain the water network. They've completely failed. They don't deserve to continue in control of such a valuable asset. They could've made a profit, continued with the operation and managed the infrastructure and avoided all of this, instead they got extremely greedy. We need rules against this and an example needs to be made. Get these utilities back into public ownership.
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Chris Dale 1 day ago
Public ownership now.
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Mr Simon Unwin 1 day ago
These water companies plead poverty yet pay massive bonuses to ceo/chairmen etc and continue to borrow to pay share holders. It’s a complete scam. As binface says make the head honchos swim in the sewage they discharge
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Julia Smith 1 day ago
Water MUST be re-nationalised. The public are paying for leaky pipes and massive sewage spills while shareholders get richer.Its appalling.
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Rae Lewus 1 day ago
I agree.
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Douglas Terry 1 day ago
The water industry is a scam and should be taken back into public ownership without compensation.
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Chris Adams 1 day ago
It’s outrageous that England and Wales are the only countries in the WORLD that have privatised water, have allowed the deliberate polluting of our waterways with dangers to public health and destruction of wildlife, all for obscene amounts of profit.
Stop it NOW
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Paul Taylor 1 day ago
This essential public service should not be used as a vehicle for what is effectively theft from its users.
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Sue Rose 1 day ago
Needs sorting soon.
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Fiona Mackay 1 day ago
End water Privatisation
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Hayley Thomas 1 day ago
Stop using MY MONEY to line your pockets while you continue to waste our water and pollute our waterways!
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Margaret Jones 1 day ago
Water should have never been privatised. Do the right thing and bring it back into public ownership.
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brian keeley 1 day ago
All utilities should be state owned
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James Ross 1 day ago
All water companies should be brought back into the public sector with no cost to the taxpayer.
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Ghislaine Hull 1 day ago
The water companies (and others) have been profiteering off us for far too long - not maintaining the infrastructures whilst taking all the money out in dividends and bonuses and then expecting the government to bail them out when in trouble. It needs to stop.
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Michael Heeneman 1 day ago
Thames is on such a low ebb, the interest on the bailout is far greater than the government can get which is furthered in keeping costs down by writing off a load of debt in administration or insolvency.
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Sydney Meghie 1 day ago
They should be heavily fined I totally agree with the above statement.
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Karen Chilver 1 day ago
Please re-nationalise water
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Margaret Newbery 1 day ago
The water companies have got away with taking too much money for themselves for not doing an even second rate job.
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Audrey Cowling 1 day ago
Water is a necessity for life. It should never have been sold off to foreign bidders. We warned that profit would come before quality of service and we were right. Whilst pocketing huge bonuses, the companies have neglected to invest in the maintenance and development of infrastructure resulting in polluted waters, parasites in drinking water and sky high prices for the customer. Enough is enough. Water is vital and should not be for profit for foreign investors.
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Audrey Cowling 1 day ago
Take water companies back into public ownership.
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Jon Tyrrell 1 day ago
Water privatisation has been a complete disaster. Nationalise it now with no compensation - they have already taken too much of our money.
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Stephen Rowland 1 day ago
We should own it
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Dennis Gray 1 day ago
Good luck and public to own same!
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Don Beattie 1 day ago
This has got to be taken back in to public ownership
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Michael South 1 day ago
Thames water is a disgrace. I live close to the Evenlode River and it's polluted. I cannot cross the road in my village without fear of twisting my ankle on a poorly constructed manhole cover. We pay for the water we use but Thames water is unable to produce enough for us to use as we wish.
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Don Beattie 1 day ago
Public health is paramount
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Philip Davies 1 day ago
Time to boot them out
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David Bagnall 1 day ago
Water needs to belong to the public. This shouldn’t be about profit but a basic human need.
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Furious 1 day ago
Absolutely NO, how dare they. The insolence and arrogant behaviour to even suggest this.
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Stuart Pullan 1 day ago
All privatised utilities are a sin!
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Kathleen Miller 1 day ago
Keep our precious water only for public, agricultural and wildlife benefit not for commercial greed.
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Adrian Race Doran 1 day ago
How long, are we going to be blackmailed, by the water company’s, privatisation, was it is not good for the country,
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Brian 1 day ago
No compensation required. They've been ripping us off for years.
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Stella 1 day ago
People and the environment before profit please.
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Michael Leckenby 1 day ago
They’re nothing but daylight robbers. The only thing they’ve excelled in is filling their own bank accounts… crooks
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sarah chilton 1 day ago
This is an important precedent: so not let them get away with this!
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Mike Perry 1 day ago
Water companies should be brought into public ownership without any compensation, as they have been mismanaged solely for the benefit of the shareholders.
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John Vendy 1 day ago
Public ownership is the only way to control this basic human right. Public control has already failed (OFWAT).
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Nick 1 day ago
Come on Angela, this is the moment, Andy Burnham has swept to power promising real hope and change. Please do your part in bringing our water back in to public ownership and let these dirty privatised creditors get not a penny more.
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Helen Howard 1 day ago
I agree wholeheartedly with StevenIsle above
Thames water also have blood on their hands as a child died as result of imbibing their filthy water containing sewage right into the river & eventually the sea The pollution they are causing is beyond despicable whilst the chief executive & her minions continue to walk away with vast sums & bonuses
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Ronald Kraus 1 day ago
They should take it out of their profits
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Maryam Tierney 1 day ago
Just do it
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Michael Laughton-Zimmerman 1 day ago
Please do the right thing and take it into public ownership
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Rodney Stanford-Beale 1 day ago
Public ownership only!
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Linda Thompson 1 day ago
Water companies should have to foot the bill to make our waters safe and fined for pollyhem
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Martin Walker 1 day ago
Keep up the good work!
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Alexandra Gray 1 day ago
Water should be brought into public ownership. We need investment into our national services and a stop to the terrible pollution of our rivers and seas. Water is a right not a money making opportunity for venture capitalists in far away countries.
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Ken Harris 1 day ago
When the bonuses are more than the debts they have accrued you should be able to see their business model
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Stephen Gannon 1 day ago
They’ve screwed the industry
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Jennifer Dyson 1 day ago
Let’s the shareholders pay for the mess not tax payers.
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Alexander Blackburn 1 day ago
An essential commodity such as water, which in any case will be a natural monopoly when supplied to a household, does not belong in the private, profit seeking sector. It should never have been privatised, and this piece of ideological fanaticism has produced a disaster in terms of pollution, cost of living to the public, and failure to anticipate the problems caused by climate change.
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Sheena Langford 1 day ago
Privatisation of the water industry has been a disaster - for customers & for our seas & rivers. Thames Water is just the worst of a bad bunch, and should be taken into special administration immediately, to prevent more harm.
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Shaun Last 1 day ago
The tax payer/customers should not have to bail out the water companies.
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Nicola Hall 24 hours ago
The model the water companies have followed is corrupt and parasitic. I believe fines commensurate with their wrong doing could make it cheap to renationalise and that this is the correct route.
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Hil Beavan 24 hours ago
As a Thames water customer this company is unfit for purpose. They whacked my bill up from £35/month to £220/month and were impossible to get any sense from. And they fill our rivers with sewage. Disgusting.
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Louise 24 hours ago
Water Provirisation has been another unacceptable disaster thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. All water companies including Thames Water should be in public hands. These companies have had more than enough money to ensure our infrastructure is properly maintained. Instead they decided to be greedy giving a fortune to Senior staff and shareholders and allowing loads of water leaks. Sewage being the worst. Sort it out Andy Burnham
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Teresa M George 24 hours ago
Great!
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Piers Hogg 24 hours ago
Water companies should be fined at such punitive rates that they walk away from their contracts, taking their debts with them. Their manageeent should be imprisoned for persistent offending.
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Teresa M George 24 hours ago
Great!
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John Wyatt 24 hours ago
Renationalise now. Fed up with being fleeced by incompetent, corrupt CEOs.
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Stanley Moore 24 hours ago
Leaving water in private hands is putting lives at risk, clean water is absolutely essential to human life and needs to be nationalised for public safety.
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ann beddoes 24 hours ago
agree with the comments above
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claire paylor 24 hours ago
Water is a basic human right and it should never be for profit - when irresponsible companies are allowing billions of litres of water to spill away and not fixing the leaks, or doing repairs, or necessary improvements but are gladly taking profits and bonuses, the system needs to be changed - billionaires and investors should be involved for public good, not their wallets and bank accounts, so if it's taken back with them kicking and screaming, so be it, it must be an improved system where the public is protected and put first - for once!
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James Richmond 24 hours ago
I disagree with lining the pockets of shareholders at the expense of the treatment of their customers.
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Nicholas Heins 24 hours ago
Keep the pressure on
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Barry Hurst 24 hours ago
Water is a basic human right and should not be run as a profit for foreign governments. Revers the privatisation now.
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W Adam 24 hours ago
Fed up of water companies ‘taking the piss’.
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James A Carey 24 hours ago
The Water companies management and shareholders should be fined for the pollution they have allowed.
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Roger Bannister 24 hours ago
All of them that have been pumping seeage in the rivers and streams should be put back into public ownership
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Paul walker 24 hours ago
The whole privatisation scam has ruined many organisations which are supposed to
serve the public, the common good, and society as a whole - water chief amongst them. Bring the water industry, starting with Thames water, back into proper, full pubic ownership now
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Dr F C Clough 24 hours ago
The sewage in our rivers & lakes is a disgrace to our country. The Victorian pipes need modernising & yet shareholders have been given massive payouts for years & not invested in more treatment works which are badly needed due to population growth. This has to stop. Water should be nationalised . No profits for shareholders .
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Michael Knights 24 hours ago
Water services must come back into this countries ownership. The problem with Thatcher was she sold off all the utilities for a pittance. Burnham said on Monday, this country took a wrong turn in the '80s. All utilities must become owned by the people for the people.
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Michael Knights 24 hours ago
Water services must come back into this countries ownership. The problem with Thatcher was she sold off all the utilities for a pittance. Burnham said on Monday, this country took a wrong turn in the '80s. All utilities must become owned by the people for the people.
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Arthur Wainwright 24 hours ago
Private water companies have a monopoly, Thames Water have proven time and time again they have put profits over customers, infrastructure investment and the enviroment. How is it Mr Weston and former CFO Alastair Cochran can get away with mass envirtomental pollution whilst if a member of the public dumped raw sewage you would be subject to unlimited fines and up to 5 years in prison under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
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Karen Cartwright 23 hours ago
Thames water are a bunch of crooks. People are getting really fed up with this the game is starting to be over for these criminals. As a single person with single use in London I pay £64 a month this is an absolute rip off. My neighbour in borough of Barnett Five bedroom house pays £30 a month what is going on with Thames water obvious scan and we the people are sick of paying the greedy crooks polluting and poisoning our water systems that affects all life .
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Shirley Sampson 23 hours ago
Water is a public good, not a commodity and should NEVER have been privatised.
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Raymond Brown 23 hours ago
Nationalising water companies is the only way to sort them out. The private sector has failed consumers over the years since the companies were allowed to be privatised. The shareholders should be penalised for their actions and the CEOs fined.
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Jane Roderic-Evans 23 hours ago
all water companies should be taken into public ownership again - starting with Thames.
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Anne Wyatt 23 hours ago
Renationalise. We’ve paid enough for incompetence, corruption and pollution.
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Martin Palmer 23 hours ago
We have had enough of being abused by water companies not doing their job, but just finding ways to make even greater profits
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Felicity 23 hours ago
Very important!
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Roger Newman 23 hours ago
All service utilities should be in public ownership without any private or union interference, run on a marginal profit basis charging a fair price with all excesses put back into the utilities. Legislation must be enacted to guarantee utility companies remain in public ownership in perpetuity, managed & run on the above stated basis.
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Maggie 23 hours ago
40 years of focusing on shareholders profits rather than network management need to end
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K J Ashton 23 hours ago
Self interest rules the world and there is no thought for the common good.
It would seem that very few realise that seeking happiness for yourself, has never worked.
It is is clear, that “True happiness (which everyone is seeking) lies in making others happy”
The best we can do here, for the common good and clean water - is to nationalise!
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Siobhan Smith 23 hours ago
I think this company shouls be bought back by government for what it's actually worth...how about £1.00. Shareholders have taken profit from a company that was not making any and made inadequate investment. Those in charge of water privatisation in goverment in the first place should also be named and shamed and never be allowed to stand for public office again. The dereluction of duty demonstrated by this nonsense is shameful.
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Lynn Downing 23 hours ago
Thay have robbed the public for to long ,it's time to put ALL UTILITIES BACK IN PUBLIC OWNERSHIP WE THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN ARE SICK OF BEING ROBBED MORE AND MORE EACH YEAR SO DO THE RIGHT THING AND GIVE BACK .
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Lorna Burley 23 hours ago
If I had been as neglect in my job I would have expected to be sacked, so be it for these water companies.
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Anita Tucker 23 hours ago
Such obvious criminal behaviour to callously put families at such disgusting health risks and relish profiting from it.
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Jim Hines 23 hours ago
I think the idea of fining water companies into bankruptcy is a very appealing one. It may also depress the share values of other privatised utilities and enable further nationalisation.
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Francis O’Leary 23 hours ago
The government has to wrest control of the water industry from greedy private hands. They have had years of exploitation to enrich themselves while the whole water system was systematically degraded. They get no compensation for this, they have extracted enough already. Time to take it back into public ownership at no public expense. Just vote it into law. You have a super majority. Just do it.
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Peter Van-Stratten 23 hours ago
Be a politician that people talk about in a positive manner, because you did what was right not to benefit companies but people.
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jane burkinshaw 23 hours ago
Water companies should be forever ashamed of polluting our rivers and coasts.
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Stuart Smith 23 hours ago
Thames water have behaved appallingly
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MR FRANCIS J MCENTAGGART 23 hours ago
Water should be renationalised.
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Michael Kearney 23 hours ago
Water, the very essence of life, should never be a profit making exercise.
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Tim Atkin 23 hours ago
Keep them out
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Anna Somerset 23 hours ago
Drinking water is essential to life on earth. Privatisation was supposed to improve the quality of our water supply by investment, but we might as well have engaged highwaymen and fly tippers as we are being held to ransom and poisoned by chemicals and excretia. Our water situation is an international joke in the worst possible taste. Renatiinalise and recoup the ill-gotten bonuses!
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Julian Sheppard 23 hours ago
We have been screwed for 30 years now it's our turn.
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Fiona Edge 23 hours ago
Water should never have been privatised. Don’t let them take more money from us and do more damage to the environment while we pick up the bill.
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Richard Le Corney 23 hours ago
In her book, "How Not to Die (Too Soon)", Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, uses England as a case study in how NOT to organise water supply. The section is titled " 'Profit Over Human Health' Systems".
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John fuller 23 hours ago
I agree totally..
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Alan Oliver 23 hours ago
Privatisation has been a disaster for the water supply industry in England, especially in the Thames region.
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Peter Flack 22 hours ago
I agree fully with the above statement
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Luisa Martin 22 hours ago
The entire Country should Stop paying the water bills until we start getting what we have paid for and it’s back to public ownership immediately
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Gulsie Suleman 22 hours ago
Have a water meter but still sent an estimated bill. Yes get rid of them. Let’s hope our new P M makes a difference
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Martin Smith 22 hours ago
Just nationalise water now the nation is with you.
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Sylvia Crowe 22 hours ago
We were much better when our water was nationalised my father and my-ex husband Both worked for TWA less leaks now nothing seems to function properly except greed and neglect
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John Magennis 22 hours ago
All basic facilities for living should be in public ownership.
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Robert Adomaitis 22 hours ago
Recoup the funds from CEOs and shareholders
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Robert Adomaitis 22 hours ago
Recoup the funds from CEOs and shareholders
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Cheryl Fell 22 hours ago
Years and years of plundering our water for massive payments to shareholders and top tier staff = dying rivers / filthy seas / failing Victorian infrastructure - nobody else would be able to run a business in that way - disgusting greed without a care for customers or the natural world - we must take it all back - most other countries manage their own water - Maggie Thatcher and her ridiculous sell off has been a tragedy and a disaster.
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Annie Dowling 22 hours ago
Time that shareholders and management of the water companies stopped leeching on the public.
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David Jones 22 hours ago
Clean water is a basic human right. It should not be a monopoly where our nature is being destroyed whilst the profits are privatised and the losses are nationalised. I’m sick to the back teeth of corporate greed ruining the lives of ordinary people and wildlife. No more
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Percival Carvello 22 hours ago
Fine the directors
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Ilana Cravitz 22 hours ago
Please stop this company profiteering at the taxpayers' expense.
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Catherine Whittingham 22 hours ago
I find it hard to believe that water companies have been allowed to get away with taking large amounts of money and not doing the job they are paid to do. Who wrote their contracts?
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clive summerton 22 hours ago
There is only one solution to corrupt water companies public ownership, they have failed at the expense of people and failed to put all the necessary solutions to prevent pollution of our environment whilst taking money to fill their own pockets absolute parasites.
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Janet Marks 22 hours ago
I heartily agree. Privatisation was and is the most unethical way of managing a national resource.
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Azra Imam 22 hours ago
Ease the life of common people!
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Madeleine Wells 22 hours ago
Water falls out of the sky onto the land we all live on. It cannot be owned by anyone. It belongs to us all and should not be commodified to make profit for the few at huge cost to everyone living here and to the detriment of all the creatures living in water courses and lakes. We depend on the natural world. We must care for the precious resource that is every drop of water. This has proved to be impossible when ownership is in the hands of private companies simply seeking profit.
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Lee Green 22 hours ago
Absolutely silly price rises,going up ridiculously in past 2 years. Can't shop around you just have to pay.
Water companies have been paying CEOs and shareholders and it's the customers paying and they don't want to pay fines for polluting. How is this a model for a company? How has this been allowed to happen?
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Rhea Taplin 22 hours ago
We can’t let these greedy careless people strip the country’s assets.
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Carole Faithorn 22 hours ago
Privatisation has done nothing, and never could do anything in the case of water, to increase competition which was *suppposed* to be the main benefit of this misguided policy. The only people to have benefited are management and shareholders. Reject the Thames Water deal in its entirety!
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Helen Dean 22 hours ago
Shareholders know that they invest at a risk and should not be bailed out. Water companies have given bonuses for poor management and have decimated our rivers and coasts with sewage. Public ownership is the sensible and cheapest solution for the tax payer in the long term and is also in the interest of National Security. Allowing foreign ownership of a crucial resource is madness.
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Jan Kaye 21 hours ago
The water companies have proved that privatisation was a life-threatening mistake. Water must be brought back into public ownership asap. Let the companies go bust and prosecute the bosses for endangering public health.
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John Bailey 21 hours ago
This disaster has gone on too long. It is a legacy of Mrs Thatcher’s plans that took away so much of the public’s share of decision-making and gave it to the wrong people who have made off with the profits, or stayed here to laud it over those who remain.
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Noeleen OReilly 21 hours ago
Water should never be privatised. It is a human necessity and should belong to everyone. Mrs.Thatcher has a lot to answer for.
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Sue Steele 21 hours ago
I can see absolutely no reason for not nationalising all of the water companies. The latter have consistently failed to update the industry’s infrastructure whilst increasing our bills massively. In addition, they continue to pollute our waterways and, in some instances, are failing to provide customers with water at all. I have to ask what exactly we are paying for - it seems to shareholders’ f do dividends and not much else. It is tempting to suggest that the privatised water business as a whole looks remarkably like a scam…
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Hazel 21 hours ago
I want utilities to be brought back into government ownership
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Tony Wilkins 21 hours ago
Please Please let's not mess about anymore. Let's bring Thames Water back into public ownership where it belongs.
Then bring all the other water companies with it.
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Janice Hukin 21 hours ago
Keep up the good work
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Alicia Canavan 21 hours ago
Are water bill went up because of the likes of Thames Water,United utilities etc because all these companies only see is profit not the safety of the water environment.
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Kathy Welham 21 hours ago
Water should be publicly owned and regulated for the public good as the elemental necessity it is. It is a travesty and an outrage the way it has been used as a means of profiting from a human need and not even keeping it fit for purpose. It is immoral and the failure to protect its cleanliness should be viewed as a criminal offence.
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Catherine Jacobs 20 hours ago
Utilities need to be in public ownership to stop pollution and corruption
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Margaret Adams 20 hours ago
Water is essential to life, is a natural monopoly, and used to belong to us all.
But unlike every other country in the world, these vital assets were sold off to asset-strippers who borrowed massively against their value to pay out millions to themselves and their shareholders.
While letting the infrastructure crumble, poisoning our environment, killing our wildlife. They can't even keep the taps running.
Why should they keep the profits but the public take the losses?
Why should we pay for their mismanagement?
It's a matter of national security: Water, a natural monopoly, essential to life.
It's time we took it back into public ownership (not just "control").
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Margaret Malcolm 20 hours ago
We should never have thought for one second about privatising water like we have. It's a natural source which is absolutely vital to life. Prime Ministers like Margaret Thatcher rode roughshod over us. Banks should not own our water. It shows the strength of the vicious predators who have been at the top stealing this precious resource for decades. They're soulless and evil.
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Margaret Malcolm 20 hours ago
We should never have thought for one second about privatising water like we have. It's a natural source which is absolutely vital to life. Prime Ministers like Margaret Thatcher rode roughshod over us. Banks should not own our water. It shows the strength of the vicious predators who have been at the top stealing this precious resource for decades. They're soulless and evil.
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Laura Swaffield 20 hours ago
This is a failed business. Those who invested in it made a foolish decision, so they should lose their money as with any other foolish investment. Simple
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Vic Gammon 19 hours ago
It is time to end this disgusting blight on our country
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Vivienne Walker 18 hours ago
The privatisation of the water companies was theft from the tax payer of a public utility.We have paid enough in order enrich investors.Please take back our property and ensure that we pay nothing more.
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Sue Fenton 17 hours ago
Thames need to leave us alone
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Jill 17 hours ago
Water should not be owned by companies making big profits and giving poor service.
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Peter Amodio 16 hours ago
I live in Rotherhithe and there’s just been a major leak, flooding the road and cutting off our water supply! 🤬
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Roland 16 hours ago
Public ownership is the only right thing to do.
The alternative supports the evil Thatcherism.
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Rosalie Carew 16 hours ago
This needs to change. It’s beyond corrupt
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Rosalie Carew 16 hours ago
This needs to change. It’s beyond corrupt
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Caroline Stanley 16 hours ago
Water should not be for private profiteering
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Richard Sawyer 16 hours ago
It should have never been privatised in the first place
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Alison Armour 16 hours ago
Agree that the water companies should be fined for their pollution of rivers and beaches to the point of bankruptcy. The executives should lose their homes in partial compensation for their company's loss, while they treated it as their own private piggy bank.
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Sue Halket 16 hours ago
I'm fed up with Thames Water doing such a bad job.
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Mikyla Limpkin 16 hours ago
I really hope you’ve watched the documentary ‘Dirty Business’ - it will tell you all you need to know.
I support Count Binfaces proposition that all water board executives should be made to swim in as British River - but I’ll add that it specific river should be chosen by water campaigners.
I also challenge you, Angela, to prep posted to swim by your decisions…
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Gillian Shambrook 15 hours ago
Confidence in having a consistent fresh water supply to drink and services which look after our environment is such a fundamental need and expectation. I strongly believe this can only be achieved by public ownership. We have been very let down by these companies for too long.
Services integral to our society and daily lives should be publicly owned.
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Maureen Peck 15 hours ago
It’s disgusting that this has happened. Profit should not come before putting your house in order. In this day and age you should have found away to dispose of waste properly. Just because it cost money you have not done this.
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Janet Hall 15 hours ago
Heartily agree with statement above!
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Ani Kerrigan 15 hours ago
Public ownership now!
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Julie Warwick 15 hours ago
The shareholders have been priority so far with their huge profits while the rest of us struggle to keep them in that lifestyle. Any profits should go back into the system to improve it. No more sewage overflows into our rivers, it’s a disgrace.
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John Savage 15 hours ago
The privatised water utilities are parasites. Water is the most essential commodity, the source of all life and essential for sustaining life. How can this be in the hands of private companies whose only objective is to screw the public for every penny they can get? Re-nationalise it now along with all other essential infrastructure.
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Suzanne Williams 15 hours ago
This is the moment to do the right thing for people of UK. The privatisation of water companies has been a complete disaster….there is no benefit for people or nature. Please do not accept whatever deal the creditors are offering. It has to change..we all deserve clean water, rivers, services that are run for everyone: not to line pockets of a few.
Please…do the right thing for the people, for our waters, for our nature.
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Mike Storey 15 hours ago
Water companies have made a mockery of customers and the government and particularly ofwat and EA who are clearly complicit and compromised. They should be allowed to fail and be renatofor nothing with the debts incurred by the management and shareholders with no thought to their duties to customers so they must foot the bill!
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Lena Hamre 15 hours ago
For the public by the public
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PHILIP GRISPO 15 hours ago
We need to stop paying millionaire foreign shareholders
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charles jamieson 15 hours ago
Quite right
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Colin Savill 15 hours ago
The customers of Thames Water will have to foot the bill for infrastructure maintenance and improvements that have been ignored for years whilst shareholders have used this essential utility as a mechanism to extract public money and load the company with debt. If we are expected to pay for this, there is no way these vultures should profit.
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Alan Kennerson 15 hours ago
Declare Bankruptcy in order to ensure public ownership.
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John Mahoney 15 hours ago
No to privatisation
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Michael Ford-Cowie 15 hours ago
The continued privatisation of public utilities is the most obvious way that the public can see that members of governments during the past 45 years have taken payments - often in the form of highly paid “advisory roles” in the companies after the minister has left office in return for allowing private companies to provide terrible service at the highest price that they can get away with.
The growing understanding of this mechanism is part of what is making the conventional political parties unelectable. Whilst individual ministers early on this era got away with it, because so few people understood the wholesale theft from the people and their nation, the growing comprehension of this corruption of public life means that increasingly, current ministers do not, at least in terms of reputation and future career succeed - which explains the increasing turnover in high officials, and the fact that they are not missed by us when they have gone.
We know now that the private capture of public utilities is a robbery - the evidence is abundant. The situation with Thames Water is absolutely farcical, and anyone who helps to allow it to stay in private hands will be tainted by their actions. Please do not be a facilitator of it for hoped-for future reward. It won’t work for you.
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Susan Winter 15 hours ago
It is time to return our water supplies to public ownership. This precious vital resource needs protecting not abused.
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Aloysius Barody 15 hours ago
Hang your heads in shame…
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Chris Voysey 15 hours ago
Yes water companies should be ‘fined’ for polluting our environment!
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Paul Zvomuya 15 hours ago
Water companies should be public owned. We do not want the greedy American economic model when it comes to water and all other essential services.
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Patrick Coyne 15 hours ago
Nationalisation is the only answer
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Joanne Lee 15 hours ago
It’s scandalous that wealthy companies and individuals are making money out of our water companies while polluting the waterways and not attending to the systems in place to maintain safe water for everyone and clean waterways for the future of the planet!
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Hazel Helm 15 hours ago
This is OUR water, it should not be owned or controlled by capitalists and hedge funds. Nationalise it.
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MR S W Nicholson 15 hours ago
The general public should not be robbed by rich investors.
Nationalise when it goes bust.
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Philip Scown 15 hours ago
None of Thatcher’s privatisations have been a success. It’s time to renationalise.
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Benjamin Newton 15 hours ago
Privatisation has failed. It's time for public ownership.
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Angela Matthews 15 hours ago
Renationalise with NO compensation to shareholders. They have made enough profit to our cost.
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Helen OBrien 15 hours ago
All UK water companies must return to full public ownership. In Deal where I live, Southern Water has poisoned the sea with regular sewage dumps. It’s so full of e-coli that we have not swim in it for two years and counting. In January at Camber Sands in East Sussex, Southern Water’s plant filter broke, releasing millions of plastic beads into the sea, a catasphrophe causing plastic pollution and untold damage to wildlife and it took Southern Water 2 weeks to admit it was their fault.
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Marina Steel 15 hours ago
The water companies are a disgrace and do not serve the public, only their shareholders. Nationalisation is the only answer to save our seas and rivers from non stop pollution.
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Paul-Francois Tremlett 15 hours ago
Privatisation hasn't worked
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Paul-Francois Tremlett 15 hours ago
The privatisation experiment failed
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Barry Lawton 15 hours ago
We need to take back control Angela
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Liana Turner 15 hours ago
What water companies and Thames in particular have been allowed to get away with beggars belief- please do the right thing.
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Susan odell 14 hours ago
Please take it away from them
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Ann Bennett 14 hours ago
Instead of letting Water Companies get away with not only being able to still operate after getting into so much debt, and allowing the continued pollution of our lovely waters killing fish and making people ill through using the water, plus giving the Fat Cat "Share Holders" even more money for doing so!!! Thames Water should be put into Special Measures in the first instance and then taken away from this US Company and brought back to Public Ownership. Please act in the interests of the Public and STOP THIS LUNACY. Thank you.
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Daniel Rayner 14 hours ago
End the failed experiment of privatisation and bring water back into public ownership
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Paul challenger 14 hours ago
Make this type of legalized theft illegal once more.
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Matthew Griffiths 14 hours ago
Carry on the good work
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Deborah 14 hours ago
Had enough of overseas private equity trashing our ecosystems and abusing its customers. Public ownership is essential now.
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Bill Hughes 14 hours ago
How on earth is the privatisation of a monopoly utility supposed to work?
I have NO CHOICE with regard to my water supplier.
My water bill has increased by 50% since 2024!
Unsustainable. Unwarranted. Unfair!
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Pietro Tolaini 14 hours ago
All water companies should be pushed to bankruptcy and renationalised. All fines should be given to customers and not to the government.
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Michael Lyons 14 hours ago
Stop the rot
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Charles Healey 14 hours ago
Privatisation is always a disaster and a rip off.
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Andrew honeywell 14 hours ago
Anything that’s is used by the public to survive should not be private owned
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thomas jennings 14 hours ago
Full nationalisation now!
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Brian King 14 hours ago
Any debts accumulated by the company must be settled by shareholders or written off. The tax-payers MUST NOT be saddled with debts accrued through financial mismanagement / over-paying bonuses and dividends.
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Jane Ceresa 14 hours ago
The King of the North must take our water back! The people have paid too much for a poor service. The investors and poor management do not deserve to be compensated!
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Alex Jowitt 14 hours ago
Not all profit is profit
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Kevin Pattison 14 hours ago
This is a failed company
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Annie McDonald 14 hours ago
Water belongs to us the people living here not some shareholders of a company we don’t trust and who have constantly poisoned our rivers etc. We need Water to be renationalised now!
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John Lunnon 14 hours ago
It's time for change
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John Lunnon 14 hours ago
Just do it
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Mary Bennett 14 hours ago
Make chief executives personally responsible for pollution and forbid bonuses.
The company will then be worth less and we can buy it.
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William Embliss 14 hours ago
Nationalise all the water companies starting with Thames Water.
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Martin Cray 14 hours ago
Withholding money remaining after that should be have been spent on delivering the services and goods is not profit; it’s extortion, or at best fraud.
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Patricia Daly 14 hours ago
NO PROFITS SHOULD BE HANDED OUT TO SHAREHOLDERS AND INCREASES OF CEO ETC SALARIES SHOULD BE FORBIDDEN UNTIL THEY HAVE BROUGHT TW UP TO MODERN DAY STANDARDS. It’s daylight robbery and extremely unfair that WE have to pay! Shocking!
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Tracey Neale 14 hours ago
I, and many others, are furious with the state of our rivers, seas and lack of confidence in our water companies, often worrying if our water is safe to drink! For too long there has been a culture of profits before quality of service and it is unacceptable. I pay a lot of money each month for water services and sewage services-Why? I’m fearful to drink the water out of my taps, I can no longer swim in our filthy seas and the state of our beautiful rivers makes me want to cry!! And I’m paying for this!!!!!
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Wendy Wakefield 14 hours ago
I agree
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Judy coleridge 14 hours ago
Nothing more to add
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Sarah Young 14 hours ago
Getting back control of our water is incredibly important - it would make so many people proud to have a Labour government. Please make it happen!
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Tom Athron 14 hours ago
The report on how at least 5 times more water than any hose ban is wasted every single day due to faulty water pipes all across the UK. Also, there have been no new water reservoirs built since the 60s. The water companies need to be in public hands so that the infrastructure is kept up. The private need to fix it all - and if they can't then they must be disolved and come into public hands. We also need MORE RESERVOIRS! It is a joke that with the rainfall we have in the UK in the year we are stuggling for water. Plus, AI data centres need to have a water recycling structure to cool.
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Patricia Keiller 14 hours ago
I firmly believe that all water companies should be nationalised. Privatisation of this sector has only led to companies putting profit over safety. This has resulted in higher prices for the consumer and increasingly polluted rivers and seas.
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Barbara Newcombe 14 hours ago
This greedy, costly practice has to end
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Diane Hodgkinson 14 hours ago
We need to get Thames Water in public ownership now!
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Rosemarie Corscadden 14 hours ago
Thames Water deserves no more chances. This is Corporate Greed at its worst! No more deals - action - we have no choice - we need and demand that Thames Water and the rest of them are all allowed to go bankrupt. It’s been greed and nothing but greed at the expense of those who are held to ransom - their customers.
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Brenda Parsons 14 hours ago
Stop the bonuses for the executives.
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John Wadsworth 14 hours ago
Water should never have been privatised. The water companies have all put their shareholders and profit before customers and have exploited their position as monopolies. Nationalise them all now!
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Irene Barrett 14 hours ago
They have abused their power allowing sewage into the waters all over our Country
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Chris Williamson 14 hours ago
Water is an essential for life and hygiene- it should not be a vehicle for profit and wealth and should be considered a national interest. Thames Water is not fit for purpose.
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Evey House 14 hours ago
High time
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Rowena O'Toole 14 hours ago
Our Water company, despite consistent pollution, will pay themselves handsomely but increase our bills by 30%.
Our pension increases each year but all our bills increase more!
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Jenny Hodgkinson 14 hours ago
I agree that public services should be for people not profit
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John w Griffiths 14 hours ago
Take water back to public ownership
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Mary Weir 14 hours ago
Wholeheartedly agree! Our water systems were flogged off by Margaret thatcher for a fraction of what they were worth and, despite neglect, mismanagement, greed, corruption and shameful pollution, have made fortunes for individuals and foreign hedge funds. Clean water is a basic human need. Our waterways and seas should be healthy and protected. No one should profit from our water!
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Sandra Pirolo 14 hours ago
Good luck
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Laura Adey 14 hours ago
As a Thames water customer my bill has increased by 50% in three years, in addition I am being expected to fund shareholders and fund a reservoir that will devastate the local area and I am being asked not to use something i am forced to pay for which is a fundamental human right. We are vastly losing control of what we pay for which is a human right. This must stop
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John Kirkland 14 hours ago
It should be safe to swim in the Thames river with my family. Thames Water can not be trusted to ensure it is.
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Anthony Mather 14 hours ago
Mismanagement should not be rewarded. Selling water must be the easiest industry to make money from…..they have no excuses.
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Michael Perris 14 hours ago
This is what happens when you don’t keep up when you don’t put money back into the business and pay massive dividends to the shareholders.
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Jane Booth 14 hours ago
Water is an essential not a product for profit.
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Matthew Hutton 14 hours ago
Water privatisation has failed for sure. Let’s nationalise it.
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Lynne Walker 14 hours ago
Bonuses should be abolished. Salaries are enough
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Mr Alan Illingworth 14 hours ago
We must take back control, of all essential utilities, for us our children and future peoples.
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Peter Owen 14 hours ago
let the shareholders pay for it
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Susan Ekins 14 hours ago
Lost all trust in Thames Water. This needs to be sorted out
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Lesley Kinney 14 hours ago
Surely, if it was a public utility, the profits could be used to improve the infrastructure, rather than enrich the shareholders?
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Margaret Dunn 14 hours ago
I strongly object to Thames Water putting up prices , paying directors bonuses whilst the service deteriorates year on year through inadequate investment in infrastructure.
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Deni Buckley 14 hours ago
Please put water companies into public ownership.
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Carmen jackson 14 hours ago
Re nationalise this essential public service
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Maureen Parmenter 14 hours ago
Water companies should be run by the government. Not in private hands.
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Derek Reed 14 hours ago
Bring water companies back into public ownership.
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Gayna Walls 14 hours ago
Should have been nationalised decades ago.
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Terry Crew 14 hours ago
Renationalise the water companies (and all utilities) without any compensation. They were not Thatchers to sell off in the first place so, in effect, they were stolen from us. Give them back!
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Mick Andrew 14 hours ago
This carry on has to stop.
Water companies have shown they cannot be trusted with this vital public utility.
Public control is the only way forward.
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Julie Swift 14 hours ago
The water industry should never have been privatised. Making a profit to pay shareholders for something that everyone needs every day is wrong.
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Louise Gallagher 14 hours ago
We cannot all water to remain privatised!
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Emma Fletcher 14 hours ago
This is our chance to take back control of a natural monopoly which should never have been sold off. We need water to live and privatisation has utterly failed. There should be no more chances!
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Barbara Bennett 14 hours ago
The utilities privatisation experiment has failed the public, especially the supply of water where the so-called advantage of competition is non-existent. Time to return water to public control.
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Peter N 14 hours ago
Thames Water has been run fraudulently to serve the interests of the CEO, Executives and shareholders by paying them vast sums of money which should have been invested in the infrastructure; whilst feeling safe in the expectation that whenever the company repeatedly runs out of cash to pay the staff and deliver a basic service to the customers, the UK Govt. will have NO OPTION but to repeatedly bail it out by an injection of cash. The UK Water Industry is a mafia style operation, with the collusion of the regulator. People who worked for the regulator are later rewarded by being recruited into highly paid jobs in Water Companies. The regulator has allowed Water Companies to continue to dump raw sewage and breach their contracts with their customers, with impunity whilst allowing the Water Companies to increase the Customer's Bills. ENOUGH is ENOUGH - Thames Water CANNOT BE TRUSTED and MUST BE TAKEN INTO PUBLIC CONTROL NOW. There should also be a criminal investigation into the Company's operation and the collusion of the regulator's staff (and former staff who now work in the water industry).
The Government MUST ENSURE that the Customers are NOT made to pay for the Water Industry's fraudulent operations and the Regulator's TOTAL FAILURE to control them.
TAKE Thames Water INTO PUBLIC CONTROL NOW, to send a clear message to all other Water companies to clean up their acts.
Water Companies can be left in private ownership - just make it illegal for them to operate without an annually renewable UK Government Operating Licence, with strict performance criteria attached and strict limits on when and how much can be paid in salaries, bonuses and dividends; strictly linked to the companies performance against strict criteria (sewage pollution, fixing leaks, maintenance and investment in new infrastructure).
When a Private Water Company fails to meet it's set criteria, it's Operator's Licence can be revoked and all assets transferred to UK Govt. Water (without penalty). An under performing Private Water Company should be treated just like an unroadworthy / untaxed / uninsured car being driven on the road - it should be immediately confiscated and crushed.
UK Consumers have been forced to pay too high Water Bills and have been FAILED by successive Governments and the REGULATOR, who have allowed Water Companies to get away with fraud and asset stripping by borrowing large sums of money using the infrastructure as security and channelling that money out of the company to be paid as dividends.
You MUST ACT NOW.
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Hazel Sharrad 14 hours ago
Investing carries the risk of losing one’s money. The creditors took that risk and must accept the consequences.
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Gillian Davies 14 hours ago
Clean up the water and charge people for what people they use and STOP lining the pockets of the shareholders with OUR money
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David Doodson 14 hours ago
Save our rivers!
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Mike Thompson 14 hours ago
The huge majority want our national asset back.
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Penny 14 hours ago
Water should never have been privatised. It’s a utility that needs to be in public hands. Not with shareholders taking profits. Surely the general public are the share holders of a necessary resource.
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Timothy Pettican-Runnicles 14 hours ago
Water belongs in public hands
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Janice Farley 14 hours ago
You have literally drained Thames Water from its ability to serve its customers - the public who owned it back in the day. We have already paid for your personal financial gains, why should we pay further for your insidious greed and lack of ethics and governance.
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Michael Faulkner 14 hours ago
Stop the rot no one should profit from filthy water and environmental vandalism. Public ownership please
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Michael Wright 14 hours ago
I totally agree
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Colin Hargreaves 13 hours ago
Thanks for listening and taking action to take this essential service back into public control. Water management has to be the most important asset going forward and we will need every penny to rebuild the infrastructure necessary to supply clean water for all of us without damaging the land and waterways we live with. Please ensure that this is a cross party matter and ensure that this industry can never be a profit making machine going forward and all money paid by the public is used to maximum efficiency.
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Patricia Romain 13 hours ago
Keep control in Britain
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Paul Bisson 13 hours ago
Water is too precious a resource for it to be in the hands of people simply wanting to make a profit. Water is needed by everyone and every creature and plant. It is the lifeblood of our planet and needs protection not wasting or polluting. Please help us to cherish it, for all our sakes.
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Paul Hiley 13 hours ago
The water companies should never have been privatised - water is an essential for living and we have no choice in who we choose to supply our water. It is just a money making project for the rich at our expense. ALL the water companies should be taken back into government control and no compensation should be paid. The shareholders have been bleeding us dry for years.
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Margaret Thompson 13 hours ago
Thames Water is a disgrace. All water should return to the nation
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Holly Taylor 13 hours ago
Water is a precious resource and should be brought back into public ownership and never be in the hands of private investors who will not protect the interests of those who depend on it staying accessible, clean and affordable.
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Paul Bisson 13 hours ago
Please protect our water, our most precious resource on this planet. It is for everyone, it is not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, or wasted and polluted.
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Sara Squires 13 hours ago
We need clean water without polluting our rivers with excrement, which this company is incapable of delivering - as their past record clearly shows.
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Sara Squires 13 hours ago
We need clean water without polluting our rivers with excrement, which this company is incapable of delivering - as their past record clearly shows.
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Adam 13 hours ago
tell these shady American hedge funds to get out of Britain
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Moira Unsworth 13 hours ago
We were told private companies can run services better and cheaper than the government, this is not proven to be untrue. Costs have risen, profits have risen, but water quality and service have fallen. Our water is polluted or drinking water not secure, End privatisation, water is not for profit, it belongs to us all.
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Anne Davies 13 hours ago
I agree wholeheartedly with Steven Isle’s comment.
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Gina Stone 13 hours ago
Water should be for people not profit.
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Kate Calvert 13 hours ago
Public services should be run in the public interest, not for private profit.
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Norma Hunter 13 hours ago
Public ownership of utilities is the only way to guarantee security
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Susan Wheeler 13 hours ago
Thames Water are a disgrace. They keep increasing our bills but the standards have gone down. Meanwhile shareholders taking millions off us.
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Susan M Langham-Fitt 13 hours ago
Public Utilities should not be owned by private companies whose role is profit for shareholders. The history of the last decades since privatisation has clearly demonstrated this error.
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Andy Little 13 hours ago
Labour must keep explaining to the public that Privatisation of any public service is a Lie. (Its good for a few rich shareholder parasites but at the direct expense of the general public) The water companies should be held up and publicly exhibited as the proof. Then look at the privatisation of the NHS. Eye services and ear services already gone to self interested private companies, among many others
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Terence Martin 13 hours ago
Water is an essential for life and should never be organised for private profit.
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Maggie Maguire 13 hours ago
Water should belong to the people
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Jim Selby 13 hours ago
Water needs to be made public owned too much is going to share holders and not enough to environment
The standard has dropped and rivers are being poluted drinking water has been getting undrinkable
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Roger Stone 13 hours ago
More broadly, in addition to the sewage discharge disgrace across all the water companies we have the loss of 15% or so of drinking water from leaking mains at the same time as hosepipe bans. Rather than fix leaks the companies have reduced water pressure so that our supply pressure is FAR lower than in other countries and we can’t have a decent shower. If British Gas can supply gas without leaking it every where it should be MUCH easier not to lose water.
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Alice Stewart 13 hours ago
Private ownership of utilities should not be for profit or benefit of individuals.
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Syed iliyas Hussain 13 hours ago
Couldn't agree more
Public companies should not be there for purposes of profit
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Tim 13 hours ago
The privatised utilities should all be fined in shares so we can take back ownership and control appropriately.
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paul berthold 13 hours ago
Profits before services is their mantra. Water is a right, not something which can be bought & sold by billionaires to fund their increasingly extravagant lifestyles
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Robin Ford 13 hours ago
Re-nationationalise the lot!
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Colin povoas 13 hours ago
Thames water has failed to keep up with repairs and only increase prices above inflation for money orientated investors this should be a public service run by public all utilities should be
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Mary-Anne Fiorini 13 hours ago
Water should NOT be sold at a profit, it is a basic requirement for life.
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Natalie Bartlett 13 hours ago
We’ve got storm tanks overflowing in a heatwave, and the rivers are too full of phosphates to top up the reservoirs. Meanwhile shareholders and top execs are getting rich on dividends and bonuses, paid for by our sky high bills.
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Daniel Abasolo 13 hours ago
It is about time that water is owned by all of us and not by companies profiteering and polluting.
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Hazel Coey 13 hours ago
Our rivers have a voice! It is time to stop polluting our waters! We are killing the wildlife and our children are unable to enjoy the nature that they deserve!
I am ashamed looking at our dead dirty river, that I learnt to swim in, and catch sticklebacks as a child. What sort of country are we to continue to pour untreated sewage in our rivers and oceans? Profit before nature? How did this happen? Margaret Thatcher’s government had no right to sell our water! 💦 You can now put this injustice to rights if you wish to! Please do!!
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James Ormiston 13 hours ago
Water is not a commodity it's a neccessity! It should not be used to make profits.
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Karol Steele 13 hours ago
It is quite clear that privatisation is a disaster (as all the intelligent and sensible people said when Thatcher started this appalling process). ALL public utilities should be back in public hands, not just Water.
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Paul Durston 13 hours ago
We've drifted too far from the GROUP towards the INDIVIDUAL. We need to move back towards the GROUP.
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John Cooper 13 hours ago
Current privatised water companies shareholders must now share the cost of their company’s failures.
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Robert Kirby 13 hours ago
Utilities should never be sold off to the private sector
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Kate Pellegrini 13 hours ago
The privatisation experiment has failed the users in many sectors: water, post, railways, energy. All investment ‘products’ come with a warning before an investor commits their funds: ‘the value of shares can fall as well as rise’. The UK is the only country with privatised water, a NATURAL RESOURCE. Missing this opportunity to renationalise Thames Water will guarantee a huge defection of Labour supporters to the Greens in the next election.
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E. Courshee 13 hours ago
Who in their right mind allows FOREIGN investment companies to own a vital service like water without which we die!!!. Take back ALL services that belong to the public ultimately since they fund it through their bills. Thames waters owners have a shameful history with complete disregard for its customers and for the UK environment, their only goal, profit. For once lets put people first. But unless Thames water improves its infrastructure, builds new reservoirs, improves the ones already in service and stops giving itself massive pay rises and bonuses it is on a slippery slope with little chance of continuing. Already in debt by billions, Thames Waters foreign owners have fleeced the UK population without once putting back profits to benefit the people OF THIS COUNTRY. Don't even question the ethics of taking back what rightfully belongs to the people of this country, it should not be used as a tool to make money for foreign investors!! Insanity
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Robert Kirby 13 hours ago
Utilities should never be sold off to the private sector
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Kevin Rowlands 13 hours ago
Long overdue to stop being mugged by these greedy parasites, who want more whether they’re in profit or, more likely, in self created debt. All while directors and shareholders continue to milk the public while allowing river lake and sea pollution without punishment.
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David Saunders 13 hours ago
The behaviour of the management and shareholders of Thames Water has been predatory and venal. They are a disgrace and should no longer be allowed to pollute our waterways whilst constantly increasing their charges to consumers!
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Carol Rodgers 13 hours ago
The water companies have proved themselves absolutely useless at protecting our waterways from pollution. How on earth have they managed to accumulate so much debt. They are not fit for purpose. Please don’t allow them any leeway. Take them back in to public ownership.
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Julia Dean 13 hours ago
For this or any other water company to cling on for grim death to their autonomy simply because of their and their own shareholders interests is not only obscene but is a violation and destitution of their public trust and responsibility.
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Susan Bains 13 hours ago
Clean water, properly managed, is a basic right and something I feel strongly should be in public ownership. An elite should never profit from other people’s suffering and poor health.
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Karen 13 hours ago
Special administration now
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Marion Kimberley 13 hours ago
Water us a necessity. It should always be publically controlled and non-profit making
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Brian Barham 13 hours ago
After Water must come the return to public ownership all utilities stolen from us in the Thatcher years.
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Dr Barney ROSEDALE 13 hours ago
This ‘neoliberal’ farce has gone on long enough anis a proven failure. Please take back the Thames Water disaster and recognise the folly of privatising monopolies.
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Rita Farrell 13 hours ago
I agree wholeheartedly
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Dennis Ford 13 hours ago
Nationalisation without compensation
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Carol Aviss 13 hours ago
Failed water companies have FAILED for too long. People before greed.
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Phil Fairish 13 hours ago
The pollution created . And rising costs for the customers paying for it is fix is only one of the failings,.that is unacceptable while they are claiming huge bonuses for the share holders, that should have been spent on keeping the environment , rivers and seas clean , that create a health risk for the public that are expecting and paying for it .
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Karen Berkley 13 hours ago
we want our utilities nationalised we are fed up with the exorbitant charges we are charged by private utility companies, the only care about their shareholders.
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Edmond John Starkey 13 hours ago
The recent 2 part television expose about Thames Water titled “Dirty Business” said it all.
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Vanessa Derry 13 hours ago
Why do these people expect bonuses and shares. It’s failing. The answer is No.
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Nikki Sinclair 13 hours ago
There isn't a single privatised utility that works better under privatisation. The public were conned and are being ripped off constantly. Take Thames Water back into public ownership and prove to all privatised utilities you mean business. Do not use taxpayer's money to bail them out. Tie up public ownership so tightly that utilities can't be sold off again once taxpayers' money has improved them.
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MARK RIDLEY 13 hours ago
All water companies should be brought back into public ownership,
I hope the current Labour Cabour party will do this.
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Tj Chaudhry 13 hours ago
It’s about time the government did something positive for the people. Give them hope that we are not being ignored.
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Mary Abi Antoun 13 hours ago
The regulatory body should be disbanded and their jobs given to people who understand how important their work is. As a member of the public I rely on appointed regulatory bodies to do the job for which they are appointed.
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Brian Southern 13 hours ago
This industry needs to be cleaned up to one the public can trust without the pollution of our rivers.
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Philip Fairish 13 hours ago
Not supplying the customers with what they are paying for . A safe clean environment that is not a health risk to them that expected it as they face increasing bills for a failed fix,
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Sami Robinson 13 hours ago
Keep going Thames water can't win this fight.
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Kathy Fyffe 13 hours ago
It’s a disgrace. Poisoning our water supply should incur a life prison sentence. Making a profit from selling vital drinking water should be illegal.
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Edmond John Starkey 13 hours ago
Privatisation of this essential utility has proved to be a complete failure.
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Kathy Ludbrook 13 hours ago
There is no justification for private ownership of any public services, especially one as vital as Water. We cannot be held to ransom, be overcharged for a poor and dangerous service, and then be expected to pay more for it to be put right.
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Anthony Rowe 13 hours ago
As an individual I contacted my water company ignored.
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Dave Quayle 13 hours ago
Nationalisation is the only answer
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Raynor Davie 13 hours ago
A utility service should not be an opportunity for profit making enterprise. Full stop.
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Sandra Abrams 13 hours ago
Agree absolutely!
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Andrea Byrom 13 hours ago
For once, please strike a blow for democracy against the robber barons who have systematically asset-stripped an essential resource that should never have been privatised. Water is an essential to life and decency and cannot be entrusted to those who seek to exploit everything in search of more profit for the few.
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Noeleen Grattan 13 hours ago
Please listen
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Clive Pritchard 13 hours ago
Water is a national treasure and should be under public control.
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Roger 13 hours ago
As Mr. Spock once said,
"the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
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Joy McMahon 13 hours ago
Privatisation was always a scam! How can a utility that has to pay shareholders be cheaper? Just corrupt MPs taking bribes to sell us down the river! It's got to be stopped now!
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Meurig Jones 13 hours ago
A law should be passed to bring in auditors to discover if shareholders have made back their initial investments as shareholders, and if they have they should not be compensated.
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Rob Billinge-Hall 13 hours ago
The current situation is ludicrous. Privatisation was about channeling money to the wealthy and wealthy corporations, many owned offshore. What is needed now is bold action to make water work for the people of this country, delivering significant investment in infrastructure, cleaning of rivers and the sea and reduced cost for consumers. Bold action. Management not oversight.
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Alison Berry 13 hours ago
Water companies should pay such a high fine/penalty equal to at least the total dividends and bonuses paid out of their funds since they were privatised to put our money back where it belongs- investing in the infrastructure and new technologies.
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Stephen Parkes 13 hours ago
Thames Water shareholders have milked the public for far too long with plenty of money going into their pockets rather than being used to improve vital infrastructure which is absolutely shameful.
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Richard Wright 13 hours ago
Make the companies pay, now!
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Carlos Rodoreda Torres 13 hours ago
We're just sick of seeing the services and quality of the water worsening while the bills get higher and higher. Creditors deserve to loose control. They got themselves in a muddy ditch and it's time they stay there. Let's take back control!
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Richard Wright 13 hours ago
Act now!
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Richard Wright 13 hours ago
Agreed.
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Colin Ryan 12 hours ago
Privatised water companies should be the same as water companies in Scotland , owned by the people run as a private company so that profits go back into the company and not shareholders pockets.
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Angie Whiley 12 hours ago
Time to take back control of our most precious resource, especially with AI needing so much of it.
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Rosemary Humphrys 12 hours ago
Mismanagement and creditors’ greed should not be the driving force
for our utility companies.
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Mark Birchall 12 hours ago
Renationalise all water companies
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Elizabeth James 12 hours ago
Tired of the tax payers footing the bill to rescue private businesses. The rich get richer whilst the rest of us get poorer
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M. Peters 12 hours ago
They made the problem so definitely fined a hefty amount & renationalised. They caused the problem with their greed and lack of investment.
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Mary Birchall 12 hours ago
Shareholders must not be allowed to profit at the expense of the public
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PETER THORNTON 12 hours ago
Currently not fit for purpose.
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Graham Cook 12 hours ago
Water is a vital national asset and should be owned nationally.
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Jane Lumkin 12 hours ago
Please do not allow Thames water creditors to retain control of water authority. They have forfeited the right to control a public utility by allowing the water supply to be polluted and without regular and necessary msintenance.
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Diana Parsonage 12 hours ago
I’m fed up with big companies robbing the public. Taking out money and still poisoning the water.
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Jane Carroll 12 hours ago
The behaviour of these companies is criminal. Or money has been taken and our environment has been devastated. Rivers are a danger to life and we now have a hosepipe ban because no provision has been made for the inevitable effects of climate change and hot weather. Managers should be prosecuted!
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Lauraine McManus 12 hours ago
The water companies should not be allowed to continue polluting our rivers and seas. It’s a disgrace
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Malcolm Charles 12 hours ago
Years of mismanagement and underinvestment, coupled with asset striping and environmental damage, of our water utilities & systems has to stop.
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Judi Chrysanthou 12 hours ago
I support what you are doing
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Michael Shears 12 hours ago
Southwest water is almost as bad with sewage spills ruining our beaches and the Brixham incident.
Our prices are astranomically high too
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Anne Shears 12 hours ago
For too long water companies have been allowed to get away with horrendous pollution issues. I live in the South West where we already have the second highest water bills in the country but too few reservoirs. We used to have blue flag beaches but I believe this standard has now been removed. Water companies need to be held to account for causing illness ( and even death) to bathers using seas and rivers, lack of maintenance in treatment works, lack of building new infrastructure to cope with all the new housing developments and causing disruption to water supplies as in the Devon Brixham incident of 2024.
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Catherine Margham 12 hours ago
The water companies have caused this problem so they should pay. The water companies should be brought back into public control and there should be strict regulations, to ensure thid pollution from sewers does not happen again.
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John Taylor 12 hours ago
I very strongly agree that all water companies should be nationalised. Those that are profiting from their investments should loose their money when we run our water companies.
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Barbara 12 hours ago
Water is the source of life. We should all own it. It should never have been privatised for profit.
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Robin Hunter 12 hours ago
An absolute scandal, public services and utilities should never have been sold in the first place. Water companies are a prime example of this.
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Penny Mitchell 12 hours ago
The behaviour of Thames Water is appalling
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John Bevins 12 hours ago
Please take back control of of our utilities.
Private control has not worked.
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Anne 12 hours ago
As part of an army of community water-testers, I'm fed up with seeing our rivers polluted over and over again, while the companies charged with protecting them treat the public as a cash cow, creaming off record profits and bonuses while neglecting the work we pay them to do.
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Ursula Smith 12 hours ago
Thames water are polluting and loosing water while lining their own pockets. Water is a basic human right and they are contaminting it.
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Jason Eyre 12 hours ago
I’m fed up of paying through the nose for water only to see the seas and rivers fill up with filthy effluent
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Chris Mc 12 hours ago
These shareholders have milked privatisation to death by failing to invest in the necessary infrastructure and loading Thames Water with debt through pure greed. Such behaviour must have serious consequences. Re-nationalisation MUST be that consequence.
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Emily Clark 12 hours ago
Shameful behavior that the public is paying for …
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Gerald Samociuk 12 hours ago
It’s time that the water companies share holders and executives were brought to justice. The pollution and poisoning of customers needs to be paid for from their profiteering. Do not be fooled by whatever promises they make for the future - they need to be punished and pay reparations for their wanton actions.
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Roger Blackburn 12 hours ago
Do what should have been done ages ago and return our natural resources to us.
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Anne Whiting 12 hours ago
I don't understand How a corporation, usually not British ,can take over a company ,load it full of debt, whilst paying executives,and shareholders vast amount in salaries and dividends, not fulfill their obligations to the customer
When tasked can say " OK give us a pile of money ,take over the mess and we will go away "
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Sarah W 12 hours ago
Water (and energy) companies should never have been privatised in the first place. You have an opportunity to right this wrong and national disaster - we urge you to please do the right thing.
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Matt Grahame 12 hours ago
Privatisation of water was a disgrace. It’s a monopoly. The private companies are only interested in their shareholders. It’s racketeering at its best! Consumers, and the environment, are being fleeced to line the pockets of corporate big business. It must end!!
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Russell O’Donnell 12 hours ago
We can’t keep talking about this. Action is needed now.
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Katherine 12 hours ago
Privatisation hasn't worked,take back control into public ownership
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ML Cox 12 hours ago
Private Equity take risks & get rewarded. They’ve taken £Bn out to reward themselves & delivered year on year worsening services.
The current Ofwat monitoring framework is not fit for purpose.
Our rivers are dying, polluting discharges are not punished.
The whole system needs a radical rethink.
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Mark Taylor 12 hours ago
Take back control 😉
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Ash Smith 12 hours ago
Our privatised water industry has become a cash extraction device that is harming people, the environment and the legitimate economy. It could easily be turned from a liability in private ownership, to a valuable public asset, wisely spending bills from 62 million people to create a clean and healthy future. It won't happen in private hands.
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Paul Brant 12 hours ago
This disgrace has gone on for far too long!
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Phil Kenyon 12 hours ago
Foreign ownership, foreign profits, foreign mismanagement and yet we pay their fines through our water bills. Get a grip government and protect your electorate from this foreign invasion. Do your job.
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Robert Wood 12 hours ago
No to compensation for people who've already made plenty of money
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Susan Noone 12 hours ago
Why would anyone be content to live in a country with dirty rivers and coasts when they have the power to reverse that situation?
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Robin Blincowe 12 hours ago
Public ownership of water companies is the only way to control excessive sewage discharges and maintenance of clean rivers and waterways. Our health & environment are too important to leave to wealthy CEO’s who only care about money.
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Janet 12 hours ago
Public ownership is the most viable option in terms of security, cost and can be a source of revenue for the state . Can you get back hold of the profit making land registry whilst you are at it please?
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Patrick Bermingham 12 hours ago
Capitalism is supposed to reward success not failure. All of our water companies were handed over without debt and substantial assets . These have been stripped and sold with debt substituting real value.
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Vivien Brown 12 hours ago
Water companies should not be given tax payers money, unless the taxpayers/gobernment are given a share of profits and dividends
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Paul S 12 hours ago
Water - is an essential resource and shouldn’t be for profit.
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Dr H V Andrew 12 hours ago
Public ownership is the only credible and honourable solution.
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Jacqueline Campbell 12 hours ago
To many water pollutions across the whole country.
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Peter Darnborough 12 hours ago
Utilities should not be privatised, experience has shown that it doesn’t work and that so called regulators are toothless. Bring back into public ownership and stop ruthless profiteering
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Margaret Hobbs 12 hours ago
Water is a precious and essential resource. Private companies have been given far too long already to show their lack of commitment to the public who need this resource. Please put water back into public ownership.
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Chris Salt 12 hours ago
After decades of prioritising shareholder dividends over essential infrastructure, Thames Water has collapsed into a cycle of systemic failure characterised by a staggering £15 billion plus debt mountain, industry-leading leakage rates, and the chronic discharge of raw sewage into the River Thames. Placing the utility into Special Administration is the only viable path to strip away the "brass neck" of financial mismanagement, ensuring that public health and environmental protection are finally prioritised over protected creditor returns and corporate negligence.
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Peter Griggs 12 hours ago
Water companies are a disgrace, they should all be brought back into public ownership. The private sector has again emphasised that profits for shareholders is the priority and not providing their contractoral obligations , truly corrupt and disgraceful. The management should be stripped of the money they have paid to themselves for stealing from profits they never actually made, call it fraud or corruption it’s totally unacceptable.
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James Brooks 12 hours ago
The UK was once widely know as the 'dirty man of Europe', then we joined the EU and had to stop the discharge of untreated sewage into rivers and onto beaches. Numerous 'Blue Flags' were earned in coastal resorts around the UK. Then we left the EU, investment fell, and the dividends to shareholders matched the sum needed for restoration of standards; about £76 billion. This is shameless profiteering. They had their chance and greed prevailed, now water must be returned to public ownership.
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Richard Heath 12 hours ago
Water companies have syphoned our money into the pockets of their shareholders for too long.
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Graham Hudson 12 hours ago
Water and Sewerage should be nationalised. Thames Water should be used as an example.
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Olivia Agate 12 hours ago
Clean water is a basic human right, not to make obscene profits from
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Keith Horkan 11 hours ago
I believe our water should be in public ownership.
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Uzo Nwokolo 11 hours ago
Water should never have been privatised. What’s next? Air?
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Lynn Drake 11 hours ago
I think it is now time to return this company to the public domain.
A sum of £20 billion debt is surely one step too far.
The share holders should not reap benefits from poor management and blatant disregard of the problems they are creating re the sewage discharges and pollution.
A government golden share is not an option.
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Susan Eversfield 11 hours ago
Water is an essential for everyone and should not be owned or controlled by a private group of people. It must be controlled in the interests of the public by the government.
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Mat 11 hours ago
I'd much prefer an inefficient public sector water corp, where PAYE staff pay their taxes than see that money being stripped out through dividends and debt structures (often offshore), by overseas private equity. Not only do UK customers benefit but also the the state & exchequer. Privatisation of monopoly sectors has failed, period. The debt these companies have racked up is a national disgrace. Prof David Hall from Grenwich University has publicly said that ALL the money invested has been raised by bill payers alone anyway since privatisation.
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Dr Bernard Mooney 11 hours ago
Nationalise water
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Kirsty Newton 11 hours ago
It is important that as a country we have access to clean affordable water. Cholera and Malaria are not things we want to bring back to our land
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Rosemary Golding 11 hours ago
It is frankly unbelievable that something as crucial to our continued existence as water should ever have been put in the hands of private companies who exist for the profit of shareholders. These companies have delivered nothing and been repeatedly bailed out at the public’s expense. All of them should be immediately nationalised
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Martin lyttle 11 hours ago
Water is essential resource
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Dol Gwilliam 11 hours ago
This greed and corruption has to STOP now
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Jihn A Hamilton 11 hours ago
Public ownership -- preferable to"extraction" of private profit.
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Michael Juniper 11 hours ago
This is a big scandal and we have been lucky not to have a major health scandal.
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olive wholey 10 hours ago
Words fail me - thankfully not those quoted above!
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Nicky Bull 10 hours ago
Clean water is both a necessity and a human right. It should not be used to make profits for shareholders!
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Kathryn Barber 10 hours ago
Thatcher and her greedy cronies didn't ask the people of this country, could our precious publicly owned utilities be sold off. Our NHS is the next to go. I pray our new government puts a stop to all this. Bring it all back under one umbrella. Make the private companies pay, take it all back for nowt.
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Tony Young 10 hours ago
Time to stand up for ordinary people and stop the dishonest profiteering. Renationalise the water companies!
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Dominique 10 hours ago
Private companies should be nowhere near public services. The business aims are completely incompatible. It's been shown in every sector that private companies siphon off public funds to line their pockets and the public is always worse off. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is either insanity or wilful negligence! Reject the deal and bring TW into public ownership.
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Marianne Brett-Tellick 10 hours ago
Water is a human right; not for profit! All the water companies should be dissolved and all water infrastructure taken into public ownership. Why should we take on their debts? We have been paying hefty bills all these years and they have been lining shareholders pockets with fake profits, while failing to invest in proper infrastructure to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency or even just deal with our sewage hygienically,
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Harry Planche 10 hours ago
You have full support
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Jon Trigg 10 hours ago
I’m sure following the recommendations in this letter will not only lead to the best outcomes for customers of Thames Water and their future provision but will also reflect well on you as a new minister and the Burnham government.
A bold move and the right move.
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Barry Watts 10 hours ago
I want profits from essential utilities to be used to improve those utilities - not paid out to hedge funds, shareholders and excessive management salaries and bonuses.
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