West Berkshire Households Still Paying the Price for Thames Water Mismanagement

£20 billion in debt. A 40% rise in customer bills. 8,981 hours of sewage discharges into West Berkshire waterways last year. £8.5 million in executive pay and perks since 2020.  

These are the figures of a company - Thames Water - that has spent years prioritising short-term profit while vital infrastructure has deteriorated and environmental damage has been carried out on an industrial scale. 

Most recently, residents in Greenham contacted me after suddenly experiencing a significant drop in their water pressure. Without warning, Thames had reduced the pressure by 25% for thousands of households to help prevent further leaks and burst pipes across its network. Once again, West Berkshire residents were paying the price: a dribble of cold water running from taps, boilers not functioning properly, and everyday tasks becoming impossible because of inadequate pressure.  

The company has confirmed that it intends to continue with “targeted repairs, rather than large-scale renewal works.” That will do very little to reassure Greenham families who have already spent more than a year dealing with disruption caused by delay after delay to foul sewer work repairs on New Road. 

After writing to Thames Water on multiple occasions about this, water pressure has finally returned to satisfactory levels for many households. However, I have since followed up with Thames for clearer answers and tabled a series of Parliamentary Questions (UIN 6220, UIN 6219, UIN 6217, UIN 6215, UIN 6213) urging Ministers to provide clarity on customer protections, rights to compensation, and the role regulators must play in ensuring that pressure reductions are not used as a substitute for long-term infrastructure investment.  

While Greenham is just the latest example, it forms part of an unacceptable pattern that we know all too well: persistent groundwater infiltration in the Lambourn Valley, sewage discharges into our chalk streams across West Berkshire, and raw sewage spills into the streets and homes of Newbury and West Berkshire.  

As the consequences of years of Thames mismanagement continues to affect each corner of our constituency, local engagement remains vital. Alongside recently joining the Paddle Out Protest in Newbury, I attended the Lambourn Valley Flood Forum’s quarterly meeting with local stakeholders, and at the end of this month I will host the next Clean Water Roundtable with Thames Water, Environment Agency, and Action for the River Kennet.  

Inspections are up, stronger monitoring is being carried out, and planned infrastructure upgrades to Newbury Sewage Treatment Works are welcome, but more needs to be done so residents can see real progress on the ground.  

This all comes at a critical moment. With the Government publicly rejecting the proposed £10bn rescue deal and a third of each customer bill now going towards servicing the company’s swelling debt, decades of profiteering over pollution has shown us that such an essential public service does not belong in the hands of US private equity or hedge funds. That is one of the key reasons I signed the open letter to Ofwat earlier this year outrightly rejecting the proposed deal between the regulator and Thames creditors.  

As Liberal Democrats, we remain determined to see not only capable regulation but a different model of ownership. In the coming months, the government has a chance to take advantage of Thames Water’s desperate decline and utilise Special Administration to transfer the company into a mutual form of ownership for public benefit.  

The prime purpose must be clear water and environmental protection, not servicing debt and financial engineering.   

Residents across West Berkshire rightly expect no less and I will continue using my position both locally and in Westminster to push for that long-overdue change.