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Water bills to increase by 5.7%

Simon Ward
by Lovemoney Staff Simon Ward on 31 January 2012  |  Comments 3 comments

Regulator Ofwat announces price rises for 2012/13 - see how much your supplier is set to charge.

Water bills to increase by 5.7%

Water and sewerage bills in England and Wales will increase by an average of 5.7% this year, regulator Ofwat says.

Ofwat says the average bill will be £376 for 2012/13. The changes will come into effect on 1st April 2012 and last until 31st March 2013.

It claims that this is around 10% lower than suppliers wanted, before inflation is factored in. The new increase is 0.5% above the Retail Prices Index inflation figure of 5.2% from November last year.

Ofwat says that the average bill is on track to be in line with inflation by 2015.

Here’s how the individual companies’ average bills will look following the increase:

Company

Average combined increase in water and sewerage costs

Average cost of water and sewerage bill

% change in average cost of water and sewerage bill

Southern

£31

£416

8.2%

Thames

£21

£339

6.7%

Yorkshire

£21

£361

6.1%

Wessex

£26

£455

6%

Northumbrian Essex & Suffolk

£12 (water only)

£217 (water only)

5.9%

Anglian

£22

£423

5.4%

Northumbrian (excluding Essex & Suffolk)

£17

£352

5.1%

Severn Trent

£16

£325

5%

South West

£24

£543

4.7%

United Utilities

£18

£395

4.7%

Dwr Cymru

£16

£427

3.8%

The figures above do not include water-only companies, whose bills will increase by an average of 4.7%. Bristol is imposing the steepest average increase at 8.8%, while bills from Veolia Central will only rise by an average of 1.8%.

The amount your bill will increase by will depend on both your water company and whether or not you have a water meter installed.

Ofwat says water companies are investing £22 billion by 2015 to improve water treatment works and sewage treatment works, among other projects.

More: How to cut your water bill | Ten ways to find a good area to move to

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Comments (3)

  • UpHillAllTheWay
    Love rating 37
    UpHillAllTheWay said

    I wondered about catching rainwater, and how it would affect my sewage bills, but I had a suspicion that I'd be fined if I did it without letting the water company know. Rainwater would certainly reduce what I take from the main, but it wouldn't reduce what goes down the sewer, and I'm sure the water company is aware of that!

    I would expect my water bill to halve, but my sewerage bill to stay the same, saving 25%, not 50%.

    This is, however, only surmise - I haven't actually enquired, but life doesn't often provide me with a win.

    Report on 31 January 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • maddicks
    Love rating 6
    maddicks said

    Here in the south west I see that water bills are still obscenely high - due to a small number of population paying for maintenance of large amount of coastline. And no word from South West Water why prices remain high after their huge Operation Cleansweep has come to an end. Someone is making a LOT of money...

    Report on 31 January 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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