|
|
|
|
| |  Customers' bill increases |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why do we still have to pay for investment in infrastructure when we have already paid for this in previous price increases?
Companies finance new investment by borrowing. It is the cost of this borrowing that is reflected in customers' bills. Also there is a continuing need to maintain an increasingly complex water and sewerage asset base. Since privatisation, water and sewerage companies have invested about £50 billion (over £3.5 billion per year) to maintain their assets and to make necessary improvements in service to customers and in discharges to the environment.
These significant improvement programmes have involved a higher proportion of short and medium life assets, such as automatic monitoring systems than in the past. This means that assets have to be replaced more often and many of the short and medium life assets installed during the 1990s will need to be replaced or modernised. Capital maintenance will have to increase to retain the substantial improvements brought about by the quality improvement programmes and to continue to deliver the current high service to customers and the environment.
|
|
