Profits boom for Thames Water despite leak jump
Thames Water posted nearly £400m in profits for the six months to September, despite the firm grappling with a jump in leaks during the scorching summer.
The UK’s biggest water company said pre-tax profits were £398m, swinging from a pre-tax loss of £581m for the same period in 2021.
Thames Water said it experienced an “exceptionally high level of operational incidents resulting from drought,” with the number of burst pipes up almost 40 per cent in the half year because of the hot weather and dry ground.
The company was widely criticised for imposing a hosepipe ban across London and the Thames Valley in August, impacting 15m people.
Only lifting the restrictions last month, Thames Water said the team had fixed over 1000 leaks a week, promising to spend £55m to help reduce leakage in the next three years.
However, chief exec Sarah Bentley said the difficult landscape made the company’s turnaround “more challenging”. The eight year turnaround plan, which was introduced last year, sets out to improve water quality and the number of complaints.
The Reading-based firm, which supplies around a quarter of the population of England and Wales with water, did warn that the impact of inflation across energy and labour was likely to weigh down on results.
Despite these challenges, Thames Water said it had given 280,000 homes a 50 per cent bill reduction.
Water companies will be able to hike bills in line with inflation next April, although regulator Ofwat will determine exactly how much this will mean.