Thames Water sees profits and customer satisfaction fall

Thames Water, the largest supplier of water in the UK, saw both profits and customer satisfaction levels fall over the last year.

The company remained quiet on whether it would lift the hosepipe ban affecting its 9m customers in London and the Thames Valley area.

Last week the firm said it no longer expected to keep the ban through to the autumn after record rainfall across the UK in April and further downpours in May and June.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

Underlying pre-tax profit at Thames Water fell by 12.6% to £182.2m in the year to the end of March.

It put this down to an increase in operating costs, as well as the cost of investment in the network of pipes, sewers and other facilities.

The company reduced leakage to 637m litres per day (mld), a reduction of 4.2% compared to 665 mld the previous year, and beat its target for the year by 36 mld.

But it saw customer satisfaction fall, with its record of handling queries and complaints rating poorly compared to the rest of the sector.

There was more bad news from its sewerage business, with the number of pollution incidents from by the company's sewerage system increasing compared to last year, with 75 more incidents recorded.

This gave a total of 268 pollution incidents, 20 of which were considered to be serious, including one incident in the River Crane, which resulted in the death of fish along approximately a 12km stretch of the river.