Let's take back our water

Under privatisation, faraway shareholders have been treating our water system like an ATM. It’s time to end the failed ideological experiment, and bring England’s water into public ownership.

Key facts

82% of the British public wants water back in public hands.
Since privatisation, shareholders have taken over £85 billion out of our water system. They have literally invested less than nothing.
Since water was sold off, our bills have gone up 44% in real terms.
As water becomes increasingly scarce, water companies waste 3 billion litres of drinking water daily, through leaky pipes. That's 5X more water than a national hosepipe ban would save.
In the first 11 weeks of 2026, water companies have already dumped over 69,000 hours of sewage into bathing waters.
Public ownership of water is the global norm: water is publicly owned in 90% of the world.
In Scotland, water is in public ownership. On average, the annual water bill in Scotland is £107 cheaper than in England.
In Paris water came back into public ownership in 2011. The customer satisfaction rate for publicly owned Eau de Paris ranges from 90-96%.
The cleanest rivers and seas in Europe are where water is publicly owned.
Research shows the cost of bringing water into public ownership could be very low and even zero in some scenarios. In fact, public ownership could save us £3-5 billion a year.

The history

Margaret Thatcher privatised water in England and Wales in 1989. She couldn’t get away with it in Scotland so they have publicly-owned Scottish Water. Welsh Water is now run as an unaccountable not-for-profit. England has a unique model of privatisation. We didn’t just give private companies a right to operate, we sold off our assets and infrastructure wholesale.

Your private water company has a natural monopoly: you have no choice about the company that you use. This means that the usual market logic - that competition will drive down prices and increase service quality - doesn’t even apply here.

Privatisation is a legalised scam. Water companies have built up a debt mountain of over £72 billion (paid for by us). Meanwhile, shareholders have extracted more than £85 billion. They have taken out more money than they have put in.

Shareholders maximise their profits by diverting money away from infrastructure, into their own pockets. That’s why our water infrastructure is crumbling, despite paying eyewatering bills. Our water bills rose again this April to pay for this mess: Ofwat signed off on water bills increasing 36% between 2025-2030.

As a result of this collapsing infrastructure, our rivers and seas are being treated like open sewers. Especially - but not exclusively - during times of heavy rainfall, water companies companies pour untreated sewage into our waterways, to prevent their outdated systems from becoming overwhelmed.

This is destroying our natural environment, as well as presenting a huge public health risk. The Channel 4 Docudrama Dirty Business recently exposed the devastating consequences of the sewage scandal.

We rely on Ofwat and the under-funded Environment Agency to slap water companies on the wrist when it goes wrong. But regulation has been an abysmal failure - water companies just factor fines into their business costs (that’s when they choose to pay them).

In June 2026 we handed a letter in to DEFRA headquarters alongside fellow campaigners Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) and Feargal Sharkey (read the letter on the WASP website), rejecting the government's explanations for refusing to consider the public ownership option for Thames Water.

Later that month, however, the Environment Minister Emma Reynolds went before Parliament to say that she had rejected the proposals in the rescue bid put forward by Thames Water's creditors. You can see a selection of MP speeches on the 'Thames Water Crisis' playlist on our Youtube channel.

Only a change in ownership will solve the water crisis.

FAQs

Won’t regulation fix the problem?

No. Water companies have huge resources to game the system, and make sure that they can continue to pollute for profit.

Ofwat (the water regulator) is hopelessly captured - there is a revolving door between people working and Ofwat and people working in the water companies.
The Environment Agency is underfunded, and it has a financial interest in the companies it regulates.
Fines given out by Ofwat and the EA are simply pocket change for water companies, factored into business costs
Water lobbyist body Water UK (which represented private water companies) has welcomed this Labour government’s new regulation plans with open arms. That’s because lobbyists have had a say in shaping it from the beginning, and have done so to make the system even easier to manipulate.

Don’t private companies bring investment?

No – in fact they extract value. Since privatisation, shareholders have taken over £85 billion out of our water system. They have literally invested less than nothing.

Won’t public ownership of water be too expensive?

The government does not know how much public ownership of water would cost, because they have not attempted to calculate it. It has tied itself in knots trying to justify an estimated figure of £100bn - a figure debunked many times over.
Research by Common Wealth has revealed that the cost of bringing failing water companies into public ownership could be as little as £0. Because they have extracted more than they have invested and run our water infrastructure into the ground, shareholders do not deserve compensation.
Water companies are sought after by investors because they offer a guaranteed income stream from billpayers. If nationalised, this would be a source of income for the Treasury.