Public ownership essential for water

Unions have pointed to the chaos at Thames Water as evidence of the need to bring water companies back into public ownership.

The UNISON public services union’s head of environment, Donna Rowe-Merriman, said the case for renationalisation was clear.

Her remarks followed warnings to the crews of the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race of high levels of E. coli bacteria, while the company’s shareholders refused to invest more and insisted that bills must rise.

She said the business model for Thames Water “has failed and the company is unviable”.

The UCU university and college union said thousands of its members are in the USS universities superannuation scheme, the second largest investor in Thames Water.

Pointing to the company’s “disgraceful financial and environmental record”, a UCU spokesperson said: ‘It’s clear that the privatisation of water has been a disaster, leading to more debt, disinvestment, and environmental degradation.

“We call for Thames Water to be immediately renationalised so it can be run in the interests of people and the planet.”

The GMB general union accused Thames Water investors of “essentially blackmailing customers and Ofwat”, the regulator.

“Assets and infrastructure are falling apart — instead of putting the money in to fix it, shareholders are refusing to pay a penny unless bills are allowed to rocket,” said GMB national officer Gary Carter.