Thames Water

Today Thames Water announced that they have made profits of £346.5 million and yet they have applied for drought order in London due to the low level of water reserves. In terms of leakages they are running at 894 million litres a day. This morning I get handed to me at Victoria Station a guide called 'what you can do to save water'. While the advice is common sense, coming from Thames Water it ranks of gross hypocrisy. On the back they boast that they are spending £1/2 million a day on reducing leaks and they still missed leakage targets for third year in a row. With a rough calculation this equates to spending of about £170 million a year (about 1/2 their profits).

Anyone who has had dealings with Thames Water will know what a lousy firm they actually are. I find it hard to believe that despite our shortage of rain that we are looking at drought orders when parts of the world that have a fraction of the rainfall that London has still manage to survive with no talk of shortages or drought orders. If they spent more of their profits on leakages then we would probably have no need for these drought restrictions.

Although not a cynic, I do wonder if this application for a drought order is a ploy to get water meters installed universally and help increase their profits further. They clearly still need to spend more but I have a lack of confidence in the ability of Thames Water to actually deliver, the profits will no doubt continue to rise.