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Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
How you are being forced to pay for Australia's mega population surge four times a year
Those living in Australia's most populous city can expect a steep increase in their water bills as utilities struggle to keep up with immigration-fuelled population growth. Sydney Water had planned to increase its customers' bills by 18 per cent from October 1, under its 2025 to 2030 plan. While the application for the hefty rate rise was blocked by the state's Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), residents will still be slapped with a six per cent increase - more than double the 2.4 per cent inflation rate. The utility pointed to huge population growth as justification for the increase, which equates to about $73 for a typical bill. A Sydney Water board meeting last year warned of the strain on infrastructure in the city's outer suburbs, which house a higher proportion of new migrants. 'The biggest drivers behind Sydney Water's planned investments are growth and renewing existing infrastructure,' the meeting minutes said. 'Most of this investment will support growth in both new and established areas – especially in western Sydney, where development is booming and where population growth is pushing existing water and wastewater systems to their limits.' To cope with the population surge, Sydney Water expected the average bill to rise by $226 during the next financial year, and by $111 every year until 2029-30. 'We know this may cause payment difficulties for some of our customers. We have programs in place to assist them,' the provider said. 'We'll deliver services to 300,000 new homes to support the NSW government's growth ambitions, and our growing population and cities.' Relief is unlikely in the coming five years, with IPART proposing a 4.6 per cent annual increase in Sydney Water bills each year, subject to community feedback. This would see homeowners and renters pay an average of $1,293 a year in 2025-26 rising to $1,527 in 2029-30, before inflation is even factored in. Like Sydney Water, IPART chair Carmel Donnelly acknowledged increases in water bills were necessary to fund infrastructure upgrades amid strong population growth. 'We have set draft prices that are lower than Sydney Water's proposed prices,' she said. 'However, some increase is necessary to allow Sydney Water's services and infrastructure to keep pace with Sydney's growth and deliver safe, reliable services that meet community expectations.' Overseas migrants are accounting for more than 80 per cent of the population growth in Sydney and Melbourne - putting pressure on transport and water infrastructure. Immigration levels were still high in the year to March with 437,440 people moving to Australia on a net permanent and long-term basis, with this net figure factoring in departures including skilled migrants and international students. In Sydney, Australia's most populated big city, 120,886 overseas migrants moved in during the last financial year - making up 81 per cent of the net population increase factoring in births and those who moved interstate. In Melbourne, 121,240 migrants moved in during the same period, making up 80.7 per cent of the population growth. Both cities are overcrowded with 41,086 Sydney residents leaving for another part of Australia over the year to escape the congestion and unaffordable housing. Despite that exodus, Sydney's population is still increasing by two per cent a year in a city that is already home to 5.5million people. Building activity is also failing to keep pace with Anthony Albanese's plan to build 1.2million homes over five years, or an average of 240,000 a year. But in the year to April, just 182,034 new homes were approved, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Friday revealed. Morgan Begg, the director of research at the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, said new housing supply was likely to fall further behind population growth. 'With housing approvals so low, Australia is being set up for a disaster, as in the last three years to June 2025, net migration is on track to be 1.3million, meaning the gap between demand and supply is drifting further apart,' he said.
CBC
21-05-2025
- General
- CBC
More homeowners hit with years-old water bills from previous occupants
The same day CBC published a story about a Hintonburg property owner stuck with another man's eight-year-old water bill, Meg Dolland got a letter from the city. She had heard about Robert Haslett, who found out this year that he was on the hook for nearly $500 for water arrears and interest accrued by the previous owner, who died in 2019. Now, it was Dolland's turn. Her letter asked her to pay $435 for just 10 days of water use, plus interest, dating back to March 2020 — just before she took possession of her house in Old Ottawa South. "Five years is unreasonable," Dolland said. "$400 from a bill for 10 days is unreasonable. Let's be adults here and acknowledge this is unfair." In her view, it isn't fair for the city to take so long to notify her about the charge, with interest building up day by day. The city charges interest at a rate of 0.0417 per cent daily, compounded every 15 days. Over five years, that could mean hundreds of dollars in added costs. The previous owner of her home didn't even live in the house, Dolland said. She called the situation "insane," and said she would have acted quickly to pay the bill — had she known about it. "It feels like an overstep, like a misuse of power," she said. 'You've got to be kidding me' Dolland is only one of several people who reached out to CBC with stories about water arrears left by a previous owner coming back to haunt them years after the fact. John Dathan is another, and the arrears for his Westboro home date back even further. The city is asking him to cover arrears for a two-week period in the summer of 2017. With interest, the total has reached $369. "My first call was to the city to say, 'You've got to be kidding me,' because I just didn't understand how I was responsible for this in any way, shape or form," Dathan said. "Why wouldn't they have reached out to me earlier about that?" he asked. The city told Dathan that it had tried to reach the previous owner and collect the balance from them, without success. But Dathan told CBC that the previous owner of his home was a construction company. He said his wife found the builder online in seconds. "The whole thing feels odd," he said. "Why, all of a sudden after seven years, is this coming up?" A 'perplexing' problem Ann Marcil received her letter last Monday. The arrears date back to 2018, shortly before she bought her home in Orléans. In the years since, less than a month worth of arrears has climbed to $576. "Why did it take seven years to get this to us?" Marcil asked. "And why are we responsible for water payments in a time where we didn't even own the house?" The city told CBC that water arrears attach to the property, not the individual. They cannot simply be written off, as per provincial regulations. The city said it "makes every effort" to collect from the previous owner before charging the bill to the new owner, but that can take years. But Marcil said it would have been easy to track the previous owner down. In her case, it was an occupant, not a builder. She said she gladly would have helped the city find them, had it asked. "It's really perplexing," she said. "I could have given them information about the previous owner. I have that information, so I think that they've really dropped the ball." Dana Thibeault got her letter early this month. It included the same familiar line: "This notice is to advise you that there was an outstanding water and sewer account for the property from a previous owner." In her case, the arrears covered about two months in 2017. They have now reached $534.33. Unlike Haslett and many of the other residents, Thibeault has managed to pry an important detail out of the city: She told CBC she learned the original sum of the arrears was about $213. The rest, it appears, is interest. "At first, I was really upset," she said. "How can this go on for eight years?" She's still frustrated that the city didn't let her know more promptly that there were outstanding outstanding charges. "It would have saved everybody a lot of work and would have saved us going through our insurance to pay for this interest," she said. The city is advising residents stuck with a previous owner's arrears to do precisely that, saying title insurance will generally cover the charges. Not a blitz, city says CBC asked if the recent wave of letters represent a water bill blitz, and the city replied it does not. "The City of Ottawa is not conducting a targeted campaign to collect on water arrears," said Joseph Muhuni, the city's deputy treasurer for revenue. "Rather these notices are part of the City's established collection processes and procedures, which includes routine account reviews." Muhuni said the understands that the bills can be unexpected and cause distress. He encouraged homebuyers to work with their lawyers to obtain certificates that can identify outstanding water charges. However, real estate lawyer Rita Asangarani has previously told CBC that those certificates are not foolproof and sometimes miss charges from immediately before a sale.
BBC News
16-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
United Utilities profits double as it hikes customer bills
The profit of water firm United Utilities doubled last year before it hit customers with a steep rise in bills. The company's pre-tax profits more than doubled to £355m for the year ending 31 March 2025 before a 32% hike in bills was introduced to fund £13.7bn in pipe and sewer company has been accused of illegally pumping raw sewage into Lake Windermere in recent Utilities said it had delivered "another strong set of results" and it pointed to the company cutting sewage spills per storm overflow by a quarter last year. The water firm's biggest annual rise came in April this year when bills surged by an average of £86 for a typical than seven million United Utilities customers living in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria, most of Cheshire and parts of Derbyshire are to see bills rise by an average of 32% over the next five years. United Utilities hike: How will my bills change? The company said it planned to increase its dividend payout to investors by 4.2%.Chief executive Louise Beardmore said: "We have delivered another strong set of results for customers, communities and the environment in the North West."United Utilities was recently accused of failing to report more than 100 million litres of untreated sewage that it illegally dumped into Windermere over a three-year period. Ms Beardmore told MPs in February that the firm's record on spills and flooding "isn't good enough".She took home a pay packet of £1.4m last year, made up of a base salary valued at £690,000, plus benefits, bonuses and long-term share UK's privatised water companies have faced growing public outrage over the extent of pollution, rising bills, high dividends and executive pay and results come after a survey revealed households' trust in water companies had fallen to a new households - 53%, down 2% on last year to another all-time low - believe the amount water companies charge is fair, according to the Consumer Council for Water's (CCW) annual Water Matters study. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
The Independent
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
North West water supplier's profit doubles as it hikes customer bills
Water firm United Utilities' profit more than doubled last year before it hit customers with a steep rise in bills in April. The company's more than seven million customers across the North West are seeing their water bills rise by an average of 32% over the next five years. But the biggest annual rise came in April this year, when bills surged by an average of £86 for a typical household. The increase is designed to fund £13.7 billion of upgrades to its pipes and sewers, after the company was accused of illegally pumping raw sewage into Lake Windermere in recent years. But for the year ending March 31, as it geared up to charge customers more, United Utilities' pre-tax profits also more than doubled to £355 million. And it said on Thursday that it will increase its dividend payout to investors by 4.2% to 34.6p. Chief executive Louise Beardmore said: 'We have delivered another strong set of results for customers, communities and the environment in the North West.' She pointed to the company cutting sewage spills per storm overflow by a quarter last year. The company was recently accused of failing to report more than 100 million litres of untreated sewage that it illegally dumped into Windermere over a three-year period. Ms Beardmore told MPs in February that United Utilities' record on spills and flooding 'isn't good enough'. She took home a pay packet of £1.4 million last year, made up of a base salary worth £690,000, plus benefits, bonuses and long-term share awards. The UK's privatised water companies have faced growing public outrage over the extent of pollution, rising bills, high dividends, and executive pay and bonuses. The results come after a survey revealed households' trust in water companies has fallen to a new low amid the crisis. Fewer households – 53%, down 2% on last year to another all-time low – believe the amount water companies charge is fair, according to the Consumer Council for Water's (CCW) annual Water Matters study.
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Average water bills likely to hit £2,000 a year by 2050, says Ofwat
The average household water bill in England and Wales is likely to reach £2,000 a year by 2050 if supplies are to be maintained, the industry regulator has said. In its submission to the government-commissioned water inquiry, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, Ofwat said 'significant investment' was needed to secure enough water and avoid the country running out, and that this would cause costs to be piled on to water bills in coming years. Its submission reads: 'Significant investment is needed to provide for these new sources of water, as well as to improve river water quality standards, to help meet net zero and for other improvements to the network. The additional investment could mean average bills reach over £1,000 by 2050, before inflation (and around £2,000 including expected impact of inflation).' It added that about £300bn over the next 25 years would be spent on cleaning up rivers and securing water supplies. The review has been commissioned because of public anger over the actions of water companies since privatisation in the 1990s. They have been systematically dumping sewage into rivers and seas, unsustainably taking on debt and failing to build any major reservoirs, putting the country at risk of drought. Bills are already rising to combat underinvestment – by an average of £123 this year in the biggest hit to customer pockets since the industry was privatised 36 years ago – to replace ageing infrastructure and cut record sewage pollution. The average annual bill has been hiked from £480 to £603. The Ofwat submission added that it was possible that this extra money from customers may not be spent properly: 'It is vital that there is clear ownership over these plans, that the processes do not hold up vital investment and that they facilitate good decisions, so that customers' money is properly spent', adding that 'radical change' to the system was needed. Campaigners accused Ofwat of 'regulatory failure', arguing that high bills would not be inevitable if the review was conducted appropriately. Amy Fairman, River Action UK's head of campaigns, said: 'Ofwat's claim that bills could hit £2,000 by 2050 exposes decades of regulatory failure. These hikes aren't inevitable – they're the cost of letting polluting water companies underinvest, overcharge and dump sewage unchecked. It is why we're calling for a systematic overhaul of the water industry away from the failed privatisation experiment, and launched a legal challenge to stop Ofwat unlawfully shifting the cost of failure on to customers. Polluters must pay.' The Labour MP Clive Lewis, who has been campaigning for water to be put back into public hands, added: 'Water is an essential resource and a public necessity. For decades, it has been starved of investment by profit-mining private corporations and shareholders seeking huge returns at all costs. That has left us all exposed to climate impacts and exorbitant bill rises. 'Decisions about water management and pricing are too important to leave to an unaccountable and seemingly increasingly partisan regulator; the government must put public, not-for-profit ownership on the table.' The Cunliffe review is to look at all future options for water management except nationalisation, which has been ruled out by environment secretary, Steve Reed, on the grounds that it would be too costly. Companies' routes to complain about how much Ofwat allows them to charge consumers need to be sped up and streamlined, the submission said, because the current process is sluggish and 'requires onerous costly and lengthy redeterminations' by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Improving this process would help investors better calculate the cost of capital for the entire sector, it argued. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Weakened company balance sheets need to be kept in better check, Ofwat said. Water companies need to keep more cash readily available, the watchdog said, outlining a need for 'strengthening liquidity requirements for companies' some of whom have fallen below investment grade as they struggle to manage their gaping debt piles. Ofwat and the government also need to be able to keep the so-called Special Administration Regime (SAR), a form of temporary nationalisation, as a 'credible threat', according to the regulator. However, industry sources have questioned whether this is the case when the government and regulators' position is to suggest that SAR is to be avoided as much as possible. Alongside financial troubles, a big weakness within the water sector is a lack of clear oversight of its cybersecurity. While the Drinking Water Inspectorate – a very small regulator in charge of drinking water safety – examines some water cyber resilience, it has no purview over wastewater cybersecurity.
