Want to change the law to restrict persistent non payers to just a trickle of water…This from a company who announced (on the same day) profits of £605m, price rises of 17%, and was fined in ’07 to the tune of £13M because they are crap at sorting out stuff they said they would, and then lying about it their annual report…

RudeBoy’s Law invoked in first reply…

legally non-payers cant be disconnected so there’s little incentive to encourage debtors to pay up.

Trickle option sounds “Humane” to me 🙂

But yes, we dont have a decent policy in this country for “vital utility poor”.

part of the problem is for older properties at least, is that the flow adjustment valve isn’t always on a per property basis so it’s difficult to trickle feed to individuals. I presume a generation of brits would still regard sky subscription and fags over water anyway.

working in the water industry and having seen complaints from customers, i have to say this is a good idea. what is little understood is the amount of work and cost of actually making clean safe water.

Bills can only go up by an amount approved by the regulators.

These policies are not aimed at the genuinely poor, but at the millions of £ of bad debt owed.

I remember seeing a letter from a customer saying that they were not paying their bill as they had to buy a playstation. Not really getting the priorities in order, but then if you know you wont get cut off ,who cares?

edit – as Samuri says. People do think like that – customers who say that they wont pay the water bill as they need to pay the broadband or they will be cut off…