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Ofwat is letting water firms charge twice to tackle sewage, a court will hear. The water regulator is unlawfully allowing water companies to charge customers twice to fund more than £100bn of investment to reduce sewage pollution, campaigners will allege. Lawyers for River Action say the bill increases being allowed by Ofwat mean customers will be paying again for improvements to achieve environmental compliance that should have been funded from their previous bills. Emma Dearnaley, the head of legal at River Action, said: “It is fundamental that the public should not be made to pay twice for water companies’ past failures to invest in improvements to stop sewage pollution. READ MORE SUV drivers face new 'premium' to park their cars in part of UK "But River Action is concerned that Ofwat’s approach means customers could be paying again. Meanwhile, degraded infrastructure keeps spewing pollution into rivers and lakes across the country that should have been clean decades ago.” Ricardo Gama, of Leigh Day, who is representing River Action at the hearing in Manchester, said: “Our client believes that this case shows that Ofwat has failed to make sure that water bills are used for infrastructure upgrades. “River Action will argue that the money that could and should have been used to make essential infrastructure improvements is now gone, and customers are being asked to foot the bill for those improvements a second time over.” The hearing takes place at Manchester civil justice centre on Tuesday and Wednesday. An Ofwat spokesperson said: “We reject River Action’s claims. The PR24 process carefully scrutinised business plans to ensure that customers were getting fair value and investment was justified. “We stated that customers should not pay twice for companies to regain compliance with environmental permits, and have included appropriate safeguards in our PR24 determinations to monitor this, which we will monitor closely, taking action if required. "We cannot comment further at this time due to the ongoing hearing.”
