Southern Water

It followed similar action in Dover the day before.

The former chief executive of Southern Water has appeared at court charged with conspiracy to defraud its over-alleged efforts to manipulate water quality tests to avoid penalties.

Matthew Wright, who's 60, appeared at Bromley Magistrates facing criminal charge for the first time.

He denies any wrongdoing.

So small businesses in an area need to kind of stick together so that we can put pressure on local councillors to do things.

We had an issue recently where Southern Water decided to dig up.

It was last October, actually, end of October.

They dug up and closed our road for four weeks in the lead up to our business period.

1-300-800-222.

Chris in the Southern Water says, Phil, I've got a few friends from Nepal, and the way they say the word is most like this, Nepal.

Yeah, well, anyway.

We're all saying Nepal until someone, like many people who are from that beautiful country says Nepal is the way we pronounce it.

Yes, Jen says, isn't it shameful that the Sydney Swans get to keep all their misbehaviour under wraps because they're special? Well, I don't know if that's the case, Jen.

I mean, I think everyone would like to know exactly what happened, but the police haven't told us and neither has the club at this stage.

Thank you, Chris in the Southern Waters.

Yep.

Australian infrastructure firm Macquarie owned Thames Water between 2007 and 2017, leaving it with £2bn of debt, while paying its investors, according to one analysis, on average between 15.5% and 19% in dividends a year.

Instead of making changes to a system that was supporting such poor levels of investment, in August 2021, Ofwat approved a new £1bn equity takeover of Southern Water.

The new owner was Macquarie.

Thanks for listening to The Guardian Long Read.

Such a volume would, in effect, solve England's water scarcity problem.

without, by the way, having to build the Abingdon Reservoir.

On England's south coast, southern water are now paying farmers to leave crops on their fields over winter, rather than bare tilled earth, financially incentivising no-till farming.

This is not only for the groundwater recharge benefits, but also to reduce nitrates from conventional farming leaching into the groundwater and rivers.

We n- we kind of knew that in, in general, but we know now what's happening in each individual stretch.

And with monitoring, we have managed to make changes to push Southern Water and, uh, EA to, uh-

Environment Agency

...

In many parts of the country, over 27 million people are subject to hosepipe bans.

The water companies are preparing for even more stringent restrictions, with Southern Water having applied for a drought order to reduce business water use, a decision on which is expected shortly.

But at the moment, water companies taking water from the Severn, such as Severn Trent Water, South Staffordshire Water, Bristol Water and Hafren Diff Red have managed to prevent hosepipe bans from being imposed.

Nevertheless, that situation could alter if the crisis worsens.

In response, we have taken several additional proactive steps to manage and mitigate the impact on the railway, including closely monitoring the temperature of tracks, implementing speed restrictions where it is appropriate to do so, and planning track renewals around high temperatures." He added, "We will also conduct our own internal investigations in which we will look at all possible causes and factors.

I want to reassure the public that Britain's railways still rank among the safest in the world, and that safety is always our first consideration on the railway." Staying on the topic of infrastructure, another article, also from The Guardian, titled "Water companies in England and Wales explore surge pricing during drought." Water companies could be allowed to raise bills for customers during periods of drought under proposals being considered by the sector's regulator for England and Wales.

Suppliers would be permitted to factor water scarcity into bills as part of efforts to reduce consumption under Ofwat's plans, which are being likened to surge pricing, the practice where private hire firms raise taxi fares at times of higher demand.

The proposals came just a few days after the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said he was angry with water companies and accused them of treating their customers like a blank check after more than a dozen firms were given the green light to raise water bills even higher.

It emerged last Thursday that five companies, Southern Water, Thames Water, Severn Trent, Wessex Water, and Southeast Water, would be allowed to raise bills more than originally planned before the end of the decade to allow for billions of pounds of extra spending on repairs and infrastructure.

The surge pricing proposals, first reported by The Sunday Telegraph, come after the 30th of July conclusion of Ofwat's consultation on changing the rules relating to wholesale charging, with the regulator due to share its final decision shortly.

Public anger over the behavior of water companies has soared in recent years as bills have continued to climb, even while sewage has flowed into the nation's waterways and firms have increased bosses' pay and handed out millions of pounds in dividends to shareholders.

During an exceptionally hot and dry summer, leading to almost three-quarters of England and all of Wales being declared officially in drought, suppliers have also come under fire for failing to save water lost through leaky pipes, which campaigners say far outstrips the amount that could be saved through a nationwide hosepipe ban.

Probably not.

I've worked for water authorities, Melbourne Water, also Southern Water in the UK.

Worked for a design consultant, Kin Hills, Calabrana Route, Halliburton KBR.

So they were all the one company that changed over the time I was there.

But like most Australians, I thought overseas, I wouldn't mind just seeing what else is happening elsewhere.

UK was a great destination.

I picked up an engineering job for Southern Water, which is one of the water authorities there, and basically just did odour control for about a couple of years.

I just found that fascinating as well, to get a perspective of what others do.