Thames Water, drowning in debt and not serving its customers. Photo Workers.
Thames Water continues to be a burden on its customers and the public purse. Its latest financial plan agreed in the High Court is just the most recent step in a catalogue of failure, which drew criticism from water campaigners and trade unions as well as protests outside the court.
The company, debt-ridden and poorly performing (see page 6), announced earlier this year that it would run out of money by 24 March. It unveiled a plan to deal with the problem by inviting creditors to pour even more debt into the disgraced utility.
The alternative was to submit to an effective re-nationalisation, having been privatised free of debt. But the Labour government, though historically opposed to the privatisation of public utilities in the late 1980s, has no taste for taking on the running of a company at an estimated £2 billion a year.
• A longer version of this article is on the web at www.cpbml.org.uk