Water Company Nationalisation

[Paddy]

On the turd day of Christmas...

[SueEllen]

From the river to the sea,
Sewage is all we see,
Thanks to the Tories,
Thatcher's legacy.

---

On the first day of Christmas, Thames Water sent to me
tidings of a sewage spill at Witney
etc

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
Thames Water sent to me
plant life declining,
fishes gender-bending,
aquatic insects dying,
slimy fungus forming,
seven swimmers vomming,
river birds abating,
five pads with wings,
four floating turds,
countless pathogens,
microplastic sludge
and another sewage spill at Witney

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Thames Water sent to me...
- nothing more -
- the spills went on for just eleven days of Christmas

[DoctorStrangelove]

How are the mighty fallen & all that.

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level rivers of tulipe stretch far away.

[quackhandle]

Expecting Labour to re-nationalise might take a while as from what I have read Starmer isn't too keen.

That election manifesto from Labour is going to be an interesting read.


"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

qh

[courtg9000]

The rail regulator has an OpCo of last resort to bung failing TOC's into.
Just set one up for the entire country.
Bung Thames Water into it.
Oh hold on we had UKFI and now UKGI....
Precedent already set.

[vetran]

Didn't we send loads of criminals to Australia?

They've obviously bred.

and many to the US of A though the residents frequently forget that.

New Zealand though we only sent one shipment.

[SueEllen]

FFS

https://inews.co.uk/news/environment...sewage-2981778

[DoctorStrangelove]

Didn't we send loads of criminals to Australia?

They've obviously bred.

[WTFH]

Who'd have thought that having key parts of the UK infrastructure owned by foreign investors who have no ties to the UK would have any negative consequences. Next we'll hear something ridiculous like the French own our electricity companies and we finance it all via China and the Middle East.

[tazdevil]

In the case of TW, the major shareholder was an Australian Investment Bank which sold of the assets, land and reservoirs to themselves for pennies. Some critical assets were leased back to TW at premium rental and leases other were re-sold and the cash paid into offshore accounts.

Sale and leaseback with the intention of theft rather than using the money to invest in infrastructure should be illegal if it isn't already. Public utilities shouldn't be allowed the sell their infrastructure at all to preserve access to critical assets for the national good. Perhaps a reset is required and these businesses and the assets they utilise should be re-nationalised, without compensation if dodgy accounting has been involved?

[Paddy]

It's a common situation where investment companies buy a company then load it with debt, effectively buying the company with its own money.
In this case it was during Macquarie's ownership but it happens quite a lot.

All the value is sucked out of a company then the investors sell up and move on, leaving customers with high bills and crap infrastructure.
Yet another case of privatising profits and nationalising debt.
This needs to be banned.

In the case of TW, the major shareholder was an Australian Investment Bank which sold of the assets, land and reservoirs to themselves for pennies. Some critical assets were leased back to TW at premium rental and leases other were re-sold and the cash paid into offshore accounts.

[Smartie]

It's a common situation where investment companies buy a company then load it with debt, effectively buying the company with its own money.
In this case it was during Macquarie's ownership but it happens quite a lot.

All the value is sucked out of a company then the investors sell up and move on, leaving customers with high bills and crap infrastructure.
Yet another case of privatising profits and nationalising debt.
This needs to be banned.

[malvolio]

Perhaps if they use their profits to improve the infrastructure before paying out large divis to the shareholders, they would not be in such a mess in the first place. Thatcher's original (if somewhat optimistic!) idea was to privatise to incentivise competition and hence performance, not enrich private shareholders. That idea seems to have got lost somewhere along the way, probably down to the toothless OFWAT quango.

[vetran]

take into national ownership and fix the spills!

[SueEllen]

I wanted to label the thread something else due to the state of our rivers.

Starting with Thames Water after the next GE. (https://www.theguardian.com/environm...bt-interactive)

https://www.theguardian.com/business...00m-of-funding

Investors at Thames Water have pulled the plug on £500m of emergency funding, raising concerns about the financial future of the country’s largest water company and increasing the prospect of nationalisation.
The beleaguered utilities company announced this morning that its shareholders had refused to provide the first tranche of £750m funding set to secure its short-term cashflow, after the company had failed to meet certain conditions.

The funding failure heightens the possibility that Thames Water could be placed into special administration, which would result in the government stepping in and temporarily renationalising the company.
Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that this was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.

“If at the end of the day – probably well into the end of next year – we were in a situation where we had no equity, then there would be the prospect … of special administration, but we are a long way from that point at the moment,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“There is a possibility but the key message today is one of reassurance.”
He said that the business had enough cash to last until May 2025 and it would be working to secure a final determination with Ofwat by the end of the year, while trying to secure extra equity from new and existing shareholders. He added that the company would continue to serve its 15 million customers as usual.