Wastewater rate increases unfairly target private borehole owners
WITH regard to Guernsey Water’s notification of charges being revised and, I presume, letters sent to all of 135 borehole and other private water sources, I am absolutely staggered at the unbelievable and illogical stance of their management.
(‘True cost of wastewater to be reflected in bills’, 2 October)
To actually admit a strong financial position and then to try and increase charges by around 150% to just 135 out of around 15,000 households beggars belief. Guernsey Water has been for years trying to bring in line private water owners. It is a known fact this has been constantly brought up at meetings, including a suggestion to have meters installed on boreholes. It would appear to insist on a monopoly and has found a way through the back door of wastewater. How can this be morally (or legally), correct? Can Guernsey Water tell us that a typical family of five has less wastewater than the lady on Channel TV (9 October), or just my wife and I? I would hazard a guess that it is more like us private parties who help subsidise the larger households.
It would be logical and fairer to charge according to the number of people per household, not the size of property. It’s not as if we don’t pay our way with wastewater charges, we do like everybody else. They just don’t like us owning our own water.
I just cannot comprehend why it is so important to harass and chase 0.9% of a community when it appears Guernsey Water is so affluent. So come on all you deputies, how about some support for the underdogs.
P.S. Mind out all of you solar panel owners, someone will be trying to charge for use of the sun.
J.E. DUQUEMIN
Hazelwood, Rue Cohu, Castel.
Editor’s note: Steve Langlois at Guernsey Water responds: Thank you for the opportunity to reply to your reader’s letter.
Guernsey Water made substantial efficiencies over the last two years. Some of the resulting savings are being reinvested in our services and some are being returned to our customers. This is why overall bills for more than 25,000 homes and businesses will not be increasing next year. However there are two parts to our bills – water charges and wastewater charges. Those individual elements are being rebalanced, to better reflect the cost of providing each of these services. Water charges will therefore go down in 2019, while wastewater charges will go up.
These changes apply to all customers. Those with their own private supply won’t benefit from the reduction in water charges, but will see their wastewater charges go up. I understand if they see that as unfair – no one welcomes an increase in cost. However the changes better reflect the principle of ‘user pays’, and are actually fairer for all our customers.
When we announced the charge rebalancing, we wrote to all 135 private supply customers to make them aware of the changes and offer to meet and discuss any concerns they had. In their letter, your reader suggests a ‘user pays’ charge based on the number of people per household. That may be logical, but occupancy levels often change, which would make such a charge extremely difficult to administer.
Currently, around two thirds of our customers have a metered supply, so their water charges directly reflect the amount they use. That consumption is also used to calculate their wastewater charge, on the assumption that 90% is subsequently collected again as wastewater (that is based on extensive research, widely applied by water companies).