14th Oct 2026 08:23
(Alliance News) - Households in England are set to see GBP240 million taken off their water bills by 2030 because of poor supplier performance, regulator Ofwat has announced.
The water watchdog for England and Wales said it was proposing to hit a raft of firms across the sector with penalties for not meeting targets on environmental and customer service, which will be returned to households and businesses through their bills.
The total net bill reduction under the draft plans is GBP240 million by 2029-30, with GBP107 million being returned through customer bills in 2027-28.
But the cuts to bills are likely to be offset for many customers by recent plans announced by Ofwat to allow water companies to hike annual tariffs by an extra GBP3.4 billion – on top of the 36% average rise agreed over the five years to 2030.
Yorkshire Water and Thames Water will see the largest amount of underperformance payments taken off bills in April 2027 under Ofwat's provisional plans, at GBP75 million and GBP46 million respectively.
Some firms will see outperformance payments, however, with the largest applying to Severn Trent PLC and Northumbrian Water.
Ofwat stressed that changes to bills are "affected by a range of factors and the effect will vary by company and customer type".
It will make its final decision on so-called outcome delivery incentive payments by December 15, which will take effect on bills from April 1 next year.
Severn Trent shares were 0.3% higher at 3,144.00 pence each on Wednesday morning in London.
By Holly Williams, Press Association Business Editor
Press Association: Finance
source: PA
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