Southern Water slammed as ‘disgrace’ as it considers £279 a year extra charge per year by 2030

Southern Water has been slammed as a “disgrace” after documents from a focus group revealed the firm is proposing to charge customers 73% more by 2030 - a total of £759 a year.

Under the plans, which account for inflation, each household would have to pay an extra £279 a year on their bills by the next decade.

Throughout the five years of the plan customers would have to find £959 more than if bills stayed at the same price as today.

In the leaflets, given to the PA new agency by a member of a focus group who wished to remain anonymous, Southern Water said a “least cost plan” is also being considered, which would save each household £10 by 2030.

But under this work several improvement works to reduce sewage spills, repeat flooding, climate adaptation and sewage infiltration would not be completed.

The least cost option would save a further £3-a-year rise by 2030 but the company would not invest in working faster to reduce sewage discharges from the top 30 spilling storm overflows.

The water firm said it will reduce sewage spills by 25% by 2030 and 75% by 2050 - but for this it needs to charge £30 per household, which totals £750 million.

Southern Water said the options are not concrete or final, but part of a wider programme of research before it submits its proposals to industry regulator Ofwat in October.

It added that the figures also do not include discounts of least 45% to around 125,000 households in financial hardship.

Katy Colley, from the group Hastings Boycotts Southern Water, is one of many across the country withholding their wastewater bills in protest at sewage pollution.

She said: “Southern Water has had years to put their house in order and make the necessary investments from the money they collect from our bills; instead they paid out millions in dividends, executive salaries and bonuses.

“Now they want us to pay all over again for the works they should have already done. It’s a disgrace and we are certainly not going to pick up the bill for their greed.”

She added that she had written to Southern Water, and contacted the Consumer Council of Water, her local council and the Environment Agency, as well as putting in a complaint to the Water Redress scheme.

In 2021, Southern Water was fined a record £90 million for what a judge called a “shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment” when it dumped billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea at 17 sites, including Bosham in West Sussex.

Katy Taylor, chief customer officer of Southern Water, said: “We regularly listen to the views of customers from across our region when we plan future investment in our network, and we discuss the possible impacts on bills.

“We know our communities want to see us investing to improve our environmental outcomes and to do it wisely, but we also recognise the concerns about rising payments in the face of a cost-of-living crisis. This is why it is important we work together with our communities, in finding the right balance.”