United Utilites have informed me that they’re increasing my monthly payments to £88.50 a month for my water. I live in the Rossendale Valley in Lancashire which receives over 1200mm of rain every year. It’s raining here almost all the time. As I look out the window now, I see the usual relentless drizzle. Grey, boring, non-stop rain…
Let’s compare this with somewhere that really suffers from a water shortage like…hmm… Cyprus! The average annual rainfall for the entire island (including the mountains) is 500mm. In Cyprus I could expect to pay around €30 a quarter, or €10 a month which is about £8.80 a month. So 10 times cheaper really and although the stuff does also fall out of the sky there, there’s so little of it that they have to import it from other countries.
But let’s forget about other countries, and just look at the United Kingdom. Recently on the news they were making a fuss about the average water bill rising to over £300 a year! £300? I’d kill to have my bill lowered from £964.28 to £300!
I’ve rang up United Utilities and they’ve told me they won’t remove my water meter and let me pay a standard rate. They’ve told me I’m not allowed to remove it myself either. There’s no choice of alternative supplier and if I don’t pay the bill then they’ll cut off my water. They operate more like a Mafia.
They’re not even good at what they do. A few hot days in summer and they’ll declare a drought thanks to leaky pipes.
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Well I was right about the drought… It’s raining right now but we have a hose pipe ban on.
have u never thought that maybe its fair that u pay for what u use??#
and im sure if there wasnt a hosepipe ban u wud be complaining theres no water coming out of your taps!!
I never said it wasn’t fair to pay for what you use. But we’re talking about water that falls from the sky in great abundance in the North West of England, not a rare metal. It is far too expensive.
The whole country has experienced a nice summer. It hasn’t actually been super, super hot by continental standards but a lot nicer than usual. In the North West we’ve had more rain than anywhere else of course and indeed it’s been raining most days in the past few weeks. Why are we the only area to implement a hose pipe ban?
It’s because United Utilities rely on extreme rainfall to keep the reservoirs full rather than drawing ground water like they do in other areas. In fact they’re so blasé with the sheer quantity of our usual rainfall that they’ve recently sold some reservoirs!
The fact still remains that we have more rainfall than almost anywhere else and yet we pay a fortune for it, and this summer United Utilities couldn’t even meet the usual demand. It’s pathetic.