Southern Water - Havant

Lee M.

Can I post zero stars? - No I have to give one unfortunately. Bill up 188% in 12 months. Same usage. What are we paying for? 1) Monopoly (Anti-Competition breaches). 2) The incompetence of using company resource 3) The immoral use of customers funds - For company bonuses, shareholders etc. 4) Already accrued fines, for polution breaches..... and the list goes on! Something needs to be done, the public will not accept these price hikes anymore, especially if they are regularly planned until 2030.

Linda R.

Not only have we had to contend with the disgusting 50% rise in our water bills... we are now bombarded with radio adverts from many and varied "head of this" and "execitive that" churning out variations of the same lame excuses as to why we have be hammered with this disgusting price increase. Oh how my heart bleeds for the poor share holders that won't be getting their pockets lined for a few years. Your boasts of how you are doing this, and doing that, and usong all this tecnology is of no comfort to those of us scared to use water. Cutting down on showers. Washing up every 2 days to save water... or those who live in a certain village which has had 4 major water leaks this summer, and have the main road and a side road closed for weeks whilst you bodge repair after repair.Too little too late.... this "investment" should have happened years ago.

Ollie T.

Insane increase to water bill that pays the shareholders while they continuously release sewage into our public waterways (during heatwaves, no less!). This should be criminal. People need to demand action and stop letting these companies rip us off.

Dawn M.

Disgusting company.

My waste water bill, for a tiny one bed flat, has gone from £300.80 to £470.50. They've sent out information about how they need to find and fix more leaks and prevent storm overflow, and yes, I agree - but if they hadn't paid shareholders in years gone by instead of paying for infrastructure upgrades when they should have, they wouldn't be in this mess.

This is a historical problem though, because according to search, "In 2024, Southern Water did not pay any dividends to its shareholders. The company has not paid dividends to external shareholders since 2017 and has stated that it will not pay dividends over the next five years, from 2025 to 2030. However, shareholders have supported substantial investment in the business, with over £1.6 billion injected since 2021."

I don't see why we should be refilling the company's accounts from decades before... and if you want to get even more angry, take a look at how much the big cheeses are getting paid on the BBC News story "Southern Water boss given £183k bonus as bills rise" from 16 July 2024.

Well done Maggie T for screwing the people over by privatising utilities. We're being mugged off. I'm going to Ofwat as another reviewer has suggested.

Martin

Useless and desperate for money. Got my bill 7 days ago. Email and text from debt collection manager yesterday asking if having trouble paying? Blocked them on text and email now! Says on bill due on the 11th which have just paid. Why are they chasing for money before the bill due date? Never not paid them in 15 years! Weirdos and should concertrate on fixing leaks. Same thing happens every 6 months, I do not trust them as so desperate for cash !

Alan S.

Put the prices up by more than 300% from £10 a month to £35. It's monopoly, I have no ability to contest this. Southern water are poorly managed as per their financials, I recommend disengagement from them as much as possible.

Tom A.

Be careful with this company, they chose to give you a low monthly direct debit, to make it sound better for yourself, but then like myself when it comes to moving house and out of the southern water area, I now owe over £440 to close the account. So check your direct debits! Shocking way of running a company!

Barry C.

I tried to change my direct debit to a different bank account. You'd think that would be simple enough, but no, Southern Water even managed to stuff that up. They cancelled the DD completely and didn't set anything else up, so I'm missed some payments. My bill has also just had a near 50% rise. For what? This crap show dumped raw sewage for over 300,000 hours last year, and it's CEO, Lawrence Gosden, still got a £183,600 bonus. Absolutely disgusting. Shoot the lot of them