The London boycott that may destroy Thames Water

Campaigners believe they can deliver a death blow to the troubled water company

Morning — things are looking bleak for Thames Water. A mountain of debt, plus the cold shoulder from lenders, has raised the very real possibility London’s main water provider could collapse. And now, another problem — a bill boycott aiming to hurry that possibility along.

Today we can reveal that 1,400 people have signed up to Take Back Water, a campaign of “financial disobedience” that has water nationalisation in its sights. Organisers are targeting Thames Water, believing a coordinated boycott of water bills by Londoners at this moment could finish off the private utility company and replace it with something public. Tom Duggins has the story — he first speaks to a Londoner who’s joined the campaign after a truly dire experience with their flat. He also asks: what are the risks?

The London boycott that may destroy Thames Water is below.

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Thames Water is on the brink of collapse. Can these Londoners finish it off?

By Tom Duggins

“I’ve felt powerless, felt like I was being scammed,” says Matija, based in south London, reflecting on how his previous flat in Brockley was, for several years, plagued with a recurring water problem. “Our first winter we were there, we woke up and there was nothing coming out of our taps whatsoever. Everyone in our building had the same problem. This went on for a few days, the flow of the water coming out of the tap was either weak or non-existent. Even when it did flow, we couldn’t get hot water out the taps because the flow wasn’t strong enough for the electric heater to work.”

This situation would go on for days at a time and, in one instance, several weeks. “The way these government contracts are set up, there’s a minimum level of service that has to be provided, so when Thames Water did finally send an engineer out – after days of us not having running water – the engineer would come out and measure whether the pressure coming into our building met the minimum legal standard. He would check that it matched that minimum required number then say: ‘I’m not allowed to do anything else.’ That was all the support we got. Thames Water told us we would have to ask our landlord to install extra water pumps in the building.

“I would shower at work or at a friend’s place. We had to stock bottled water in the flat. I was on the phone to Thames Water every single day. I contacted my MP, but there was nothing we could do. We felt powerless. Water is not a luxury good. But there was nothing we could do, there’s no other provider you can turn to.” In the end, Matija says, they had no choice but to wait for the problem to resolve itself, their frustration building. Now, he’s finally found a way to act on that anger.