Southern Water defends plans for huge hikes to water bills and saying it was needed
Southern Water has defended plans to add hundreds of pounds to water bills saying it was needed to ensure the area had a water supply.
Lawrence Gosden, chief executive of Southern Water, defended the company’s proposals to hike water bills by 53 per cent over five years, potentially adding hundreds of pounds to bills, making it the sharpest proposed increase of any water firm.
Mr Gosden was quizzed by MPs at the Environment Committee (Efra) today (Tuesday, January 21) over why the firm deemed this increase necessary.
He argued that part of Southern Water’s higher investment need “relates simply to geography” because the south-east of England is designated as water stressed and has a huge population, resulting in less rainfall per capita than Namibia in Africa.
The Portsmouth area has its water supplied by Portsmouth Water with Southern Water responsible for waste water, however in other areas of the south Southern Water also supplies its water.
This has seen the two companies enter into a water share scheme, central to which is the construction of the new water reservoir at Havant Thicket.
Mr Gosden said: “That means that we have very large forward investment plans for water resources, with everything from water recycling to … we’re already building the first reservoir in 30 years with Portsmouth Water, which is halfway through construction now.
“So, there’s a very large water resources (requirement) to safeguard this part of the country from climate change and that is on top of a very significant environmental improvement and investment programme to redesign sewer systems basically, so effectively there is double the impact of investment in this part of the country because of the geography of the region.”