(Image: Rui Vieira/PA Wire)
An MP has said “people across York deserve better” after Yorkshire Water was ordered to repay £75 million because of poor supplier performance.
Yorkshire Water customers could see £27 taken off their bills for under-performance on average, according to regulator Ofwat.
A spokesperson for the water company said the firm recognised its performance last year “fell short of the standards we and our customers expect in some areas, and we remain focused on improving”.
Luke Charters, MP for York Outer (Image: Supplied)
York Outer MP Luke Charters said the £27 bill reduction is “hardly going to make up for years of failure, especially when Yorkshire Water is still putting bills up”.
“Yorkshire Water has some nerve asking customers to pay more while continuing to deliver such a poor service,” the Labour MP said. “Pollution incidents are rising, our rivers are being filled with sewage and now the company faces having to hand back £75 million because it can't even meet basic performance standards.”
He argued the poor performance by Yorkshire Water showed why water companies must be brought under public ownership.
“I've said before that we need much greater public control of our water companies, and this is exactly why,” Mr Charters said. “Water is an essential public service, not something that should be run at the expense of customers and the environment.
“Yorkshire Water has had more than enough chances to get its house in order. People across York deserve better than endless excuses and promises of improvements that never seem to come.”
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We recognise that our performance last year fell short of the standards we and our customers expect in some areas, and we remain focused on improving.
“We are already delivering Yorkshire’s largest ever environmental investment programme and with the help of over 1,000 new colleagues, we’ve completed improvements at almost 300 locations across the county.
“While major infrastructure investment takes time to translate into improved performance, this work is helping to build a stronger, more resilient network for the future.”
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Water watchdog Ofwat said it was proposing to hit a raft of firms across the sector with penalties for not meeting targets on environmental and customer service in the 2025-26 financial year, which will be returned to households and businesses through their bills.
The total net bill reduction under the draft plans is £240 million by 2029-30, with £107 million being returned through customer bills in 2027-28.
But the cuts to bills are likely to be offset for many customers by recent plans announced by Ofwat to allow water companies to hike annual tariffs by an extra £3.4 billion – on top of the 36 per cent average rise agreed over the five years to 2030.