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...The criticism comes as payouts by water companies have become a politically controversial issue amid public outcry over sewage pollution into coastal waters, rivers and lakes....
...Thames Water and Southern Water only mapped the pipes as they worked on them, leaving a large proportion of the network unchecked, the two companies revealed in responses to freedom of information requests...
...Two directors, including company secretary Rachael Hambrook, quit parent company Kemble on Thursday in a sign of the water monopoly’s growing distress....
...The proposed bill increases come amid widespread anger against water companies for high leakage rates and for tipping unknown quantities of raw sewage and storm water into the sea, lakes and rivers....
...“The water pan is a treasure, it is gold,” he says. Using collected rainwater to irrigate fields may seem like an obvious, and easy, way to improve farming and conserve water....
...While water companies and sewage releases get much of the blame, some farming practises are also severely damaging the UK's ailing waterways....
...Thames Water has a complex group structure with seven layers between the parent company and the operating company, which is regulated by Ofwat and collects customer bill payments....
...Private water companies need to accept losses for risks they knowingly took. If they do so, regulators can then make the case for higher bills to reduce pollution in rivers....
...Water companies will be forced to install monitors on them in stages from the beginning of next year initially targeting designated bathing and shellfish waters, as well as chalk rivers....
...Macquarie’s investors lent about £130mn to the utility’s holding company Kemble Water Finance Ltd in 2018 and 2020, according to a person familiar with the situation....
...The nearly £15bn of debt held by the Thames Water utility companies that sit below Kemble should be unaffected by the default....
...The two parties are at loggerheads over both the amount of shareholder equity needed to support the water company, which requires billions of pounds to maintain operations and overhaul its ageing infrastructure...
...But the FT revealed on Thursday that another two arms of the Chinese state also hold a crucial role in the future of a company that supplies water to the population of London and beyond....
...“What I want to protect in terms of the national interest is more investment, to ensure a more resilient water supply and clean rivers and fair treatment for bill payers,” he added....
...Thames Water is politically controversial for two reasons. First, it is part of a hugely unpopular industry that regularly ejects sewage into Britain’s beaches and rivers....
...Perhaps the most significant parallel between pre-2008 banks and pre-2024 water companies is ineffectual regulation....
...Thames Water, the UK’s biggest water company, provides water and sewage services to 16mn people, or around 25 per cent of the population....
...Carbon and water cycle: Atmospheric rivers’ over Atlantic blamed for extreme UK flooding Data/Population and the environment: What’s killing us now?...
...With water leaks and sewage spills rising, public discontent is understandable. The water companies were, after all, privatised with zero debt, selling a basic necessity to a captive market....
...“The size of the fund is minuscule when compared to the gallons of effluent pouring into our rivers and coastal waters, all at a risk to people and [the] environment.”...
...It feasts on sorghum — a crop used across Africa for food, construction and industrial processing — by clinging to its roots and sucking away water and nutrients....
...Water minister Robbie Moore said the data showed “water companies must go further and faster to . . . clean up our precious waterways”....
...The Boat Race, the company that runs the rowing contest between the world-leading universities of Oxford and Cambridge, said water quality was “an ongoing concern” as it confirmed that the races would go...
...Elliott, which manages about $65bn in assets and is known for its aggressive approach to corporate and sovereign debt restructuring, had built a position in the heavily-indebted water company’s bonds at...
...Water companies in England and Wales paid £2.5bn in dividends and added £8.2bn to their net debt in the two financial years since 2021, according to research by the Financial Times....
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