Britain's water industry crisis: Sewage spills, huge leaks and crushing debts | CNN Business

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Sewage spills into rivers and coastal waters are routine, leakage is enormous, service is poor, and bills are high — and could go even higher starting in 2025 as mountains of debt make it hard for companies to fix those problems

The problems are most acute at Thames Water, London’s utility, but the wider industry across England and Wales is struggling to deliver a reliable service under the weight of huge debts built up since it was sold to private investors over 30 years ago. The UK water sector is “clearly in a state of multiple crises,” said Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford.

How did it get this bad? Water companies in England and Wales were privatized under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1989, with the rationale that this would unleash the vast investment required to upgrade Britain’s Victorian-era sewage network. But not enough has materialized. “Money has been taken out, not put in,” said David Hall, a visiting professor at the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich in London.

 

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