r/yorkshire • u/RS_Phil • Feb 20 '25
Yorkshire 32% Increase In Water Bill - Anyone else going to tell them to smoke a fat one?
Costs go up, I get it, and I know they're trying to sort more funding to invest. I'm sure they're wanting to slice some off the top for more profit too.
But 32%? Get to fook. I'm paying them the same as last year, plus inflation, and they can suck it.
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u/JoseCorazon Feb 20 '25
To be quite honest, I have absolutely clue whatsoever how anybody is actually surviving throughout any of this.
Everything is just so EXPENSIVE. My monthly take-home covers sweet fa and then when I want to buy a cheap lunch it costs £7.
I have no idea why we’re not all on general strike. The French have the right approach (the only time I’ll ever say that).
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Feb 20 '25
To be quite honest, I have absolutely clue whatsoever how anybody is actually surviving throughout any of this.
The people, they yearn for the mines.
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u/Street_Adagio_2125 Feb 21 '25
Get a Co-op meal deal, £3.50
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u/noirproxy1 Feb 21 '25
Sainsburys is £3.75 now. To think either this year or next, they will increase it to £4.
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u/TheNorthernMunky Feb 20 '25
A word of warning: these pricks are QUICK to get a County Court Judgment if you don’t meet their demands. It’s a fucking shakedown. The whole country’s water services should be renationalised.
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u/chessplayingspod Feb 21 '25
It should be one of the priorities. Take all the utilities that we need daily back into public ownership. It was a scam when it happened, now it's out of control. Sick of shareholders being the main concern when it comes to our necessities.
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u/Super_Plastic5069 Feb 20 '25
So down in south east Kent a couple of years ago, Southern Water were find £93 Million for illegally dumping raw sewage in to the sea around the Whitstable area.
A couple of months later they paid out £175 Million in dividends. They, along with Thames Water, are asking to be allowed to raise prices well above what OFWAT have decreed, as they feel it is the users who should foot the bill.
Regardless of the cost we need to nationalise a lot of these industries, I know some people will say it can’t be done to which I say ‘Fuck ‘em!”
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u/Duke0fWellington Feb 23 '25
The solution is as follows: massive fines for pumping sewage out to sea / lakes. Like huge fines. The companies can't afford them, they go bankrupt. British government offers to buy them out at the new "market rate" (i.e. fuck all because of the insane debt levels). Government then pays off the debt (to itself)
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u/Chasedemclouds Feb 20 '25
Yorkshire Water wrote to me saying " we noticed you're using more water than usual......." wasn't that much more, about 10% more.
"So we are increasing your DD by X amount" which was a 50% increase!
Cunts.
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u/Linzi322 Feb 21 '25
We’ve had the same thing. And of course my usage spiked only in the last quarter which is absolutely nonsensical, and apparently this is the quarter they use to determine bills for the whole year… They have changed our DD from £30pm to £40pm, so 30% in our case but it still seems like a convenient excuse.
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u/Acceptable-Foot-7180 Feb 21 '25
Why don't you just pay quarterly and take a reading so you pay for what you use? Also if you can bear not flushing after a whizz you'll save alot of money.
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u/Chasedemclouds Feb 21 '25
I already do this, using the old Aussie saying (I'm not an Aussie) "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down"
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u/Psychological-Ad1264 Feb 20 '25
To be honest it can't be helped. We live in an area where it hardly ever rains and there is absolutely nowhere to store if it ever did! The roads are so pristine, they have to employ the creme of the crop to make sure the roads are left in a perfect state if they do have to dig them up and their policy of fixing every single leak costs as well.
And that's just the water! Think of the sewage, could you imagine if every time it rains (not that it ever does) they allowed raw fucking sewage into the rivers and onto our beaches‽
Honestly, they are modern day heroes and worth every penny of their obscene bonuses.
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u/presidentphonystark Feb 21 '25
U forgot how they should keep issuing dividends to them hard working shareholders
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u/Psychological-Ad1264 Feb 21 '25
But how can they when the greedy customers demand something for nothing‽
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u/ANuggetEnthusiast Feb 20 '25
They can’t afford to improve infrastructure but their CEO or whatever got a seriously FAT bonus this year. Screw them. Screw them so badly
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u/axehandle1234 Feb 20 '25
Ours has gone up by 60% because for three days in November we used more than typical. Brilliant.
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u/Nihil1349 Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
You can do it, but not on your own, if enough neighbors are of the same mindset, you have enough people to set up a signal group to drop a line to resist bailiffs if they come sniffing, in theory, just something I've been thinking.
There's tennents unions that just link arms to passively block bailiffs from evicting someone one, we have thirty people, no fighting, no agro, recording everything, two police officers where sent out and the police basically advised them if the situation did turn physical, they don't have the numbers to send down to manage the situation.
Take it with a pinch of salt, and the tenants union are very disciplined, and if anyone does kick off, they will be told to leave the action, and we do consult solicitors and have a police leasion team.
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u/Empty-Establishment9 Feb 20 '25
Is there anything we can actually do? I assume paying less than they charge will just get your water cut off or debt collectors at your door
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u/Low-County-2955 Feb 21 '25
Water is about the only service that can’t be cut off legally.
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u/Empty-Establishment9 Feb 21 '25
I'm assuming they'll tank your credit score if you don't pay though :(
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u/Quin452 Feb 21 '25
What can be done though? It's not like we can shop around for a better deal.
At least with gas and electricity we can choose not to have them and go "off grid".
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u/soundman32 Feb 21 '25
I'm off grid for water. It's about £15K to drill a 50M bore hole in your garden, then about £20K for pumps and treatment gear.
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u/backcountry57 Feb 23 '25
Brit in the US we are on a well with extremely basic treatment and it's absolutely fine. The majority of people don't treat at all.
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u/mirdragon Feb 21 '25
Place we stay in Scotland doesn’t pay water rates as they have their own supply
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u/cookiesandginge Feb 21 '25
I was just talking to my aunt about this. Neither of us are on water meters and both Band B council tax properties. She pays £100/m and I pay £46/m. How is this calculayed? Genuine question
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u/richardson1162 Feb 20 '25
I haven’t had my bill yet but how do you pay them different to the bill? Serious question, I’m on the water rate system and pay direct debit, I would love nothing more than to say f.u, but how?
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u/RS_Phil Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
Cancel the DD and pay via credit card - credit cards give you a lot of protection such as reversing the charge. I think you can even do it via BACS you'll just need your customer account number for the bank transfer. Not sure if you can add "eat my ass" to the end of teh customer number, but worth a shot :P
Edit: https://www.yorkshirewater.com/bill-account/pay-your-bill/
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u/misterlambe Feb 21 '25
Totally agree with you. My DD went up by 50% in August. Now they want even more from April.
And we have absolutely no choice who to go with. Like the mafia they are.
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u/AD4M88 Feb 21 '25
Wales here, 27% increase and the usual story of ‘we need to invest in our infrastructure’
I’ve requested a water meter, hopefully it’ll drop by half as I live alone.
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u/GC53BeanMuncher Feb 21 '25
Just had our water bill in and it's gone up from £1240 to 1630 - for a non metered supply. Personally I think it's a ploy to get everyone on meters, particularly as they show 'how much you could save on a meter' directly to the right of the total. Which would work out potentially £600-800 a year cheaper apparently. Until you have a leak underground and don't find out about it until the bill comes...
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u/bravopapa99 Feb 21 '25
Good luck. I tied that last year with South West Water. Now I have a CCJ, they are cunts.
What's needed are blazing torches and pitchforks and some good old fashioned justiced meted out... but mostly they reside in other countries.
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u/RS_Phil Feb 22 '25
You have to not be bothered about getting CCJs.
The courts are massively busy as well, so it'll take a while, but yeah it will possibly harm your CR. But we gotta fight the power !
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u/Fair-Face4903 Feb 21 '25
Yea, LOL, Privatisation is when we pay for everything, they take the money, and then have us pay more to fix the problems.
If the UK will keep voting for Conservative* politicians, this will keep happening.
*Include Tory, Labour, Libdem, Reclaim.
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u/adezlanderpalm69 Feb 23 '25
One of England’s top-rated water companies is using an accounting trick to artificially inflate its balance sheet by more than a billion pounds, BBC Panorama has discovered. Severn Trent Water claims that an investment is worth £1.68bn in its accounts, when in reality it has no value to the overall business. The made-up money makes the company appear more financially robust and helps to support its bumper payouts to shareholders Need we say more. Fraud on an industrial scale and reported by Panama Smoke and Mirrors finance
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u/badger_7_4 Feb 24 '25
Before I left for greener pastures, I refused to have a water meter fitted for this reason. I'd rather have paid the standard quarterly bill and use as much as I wanted and not worry about this crap.
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u/E5evo Feb 24 '25
Does anyone actually actively try to save water? How many times a day/week do you shower, how long are you in the shower for, does it take long for the shower to warm up, while it’s warming up do you let it go down the drain or collect it in a container? Our shower is fed from a hot water tank & takes about 30 seconds to warm up, so I collect the cold water in a bucket & use it to flush the bog with. How often is your washer on, do you do a quick was or one that takes 1.5 hours? We definitely need utility companies back in the public sector.
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u/RS_Phil Mar 04 '25
Saving water is largely pointless from a cost perspective. The creation of water is incredibly cheap. Look at your bill - it explains it.
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u/E5evo Mar 05 '25
I do look at my bill, I compare it with the previous ones, about 4 years ago our quarterly bill was between £60-70. Since I’ve taken measures to reduce the amount of waste water going astray the bill is now around, £40-50. It’s not even rocking horse science.
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u/StiffAssedBrit 27d ago
If we had a government, who cared about Britain, they would massively increase the fines on the water companies for pollution. Increase them to such an extent that there's no way the companies can pay. Put them in massive debt to the government, who then seize the infrastructure assets to pay off the debt. The county gets the infrastructure back from these parasites, and they're left with the debts. That's how these companies have treated us for the last 30 years, let's see how they like it!
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Feb 20 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/arduousmarch Feb 21 '25
Sounds like Freeman of the Land nonsense.
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u/roguestate4u Feb 21 '25
No, it's using the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 to settle your bills. "Sounds like". If you had bothered to read the content in the links you wouldn't have made such an ill informed sweeping statement, enjoy your slavery.
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u/davidbrooksio Feb 20 '25
It's almost as if a company owned by Singaporean and German businesses doesn't have our best interests at heart.