A howl of protest, with apologies to Allen Ginsberg. I doubt he would mind as he was a relentless campaigner for environmental and social justice (I had quite a long infatuation with the Beat Generation when I was in my late teens).
I have just received correspondence from Thames Water insisting that I allow them to install a water meter. Thinking it would be a bill, I opened it with some trepidation given last year’s eye-watering price hike. There is a kind of open-ended blackmail – if I do not comply they “may charge” me “on a higher tariff”. But since I do not know what that is I am in no position to make a judgement. In any case they do not even need my permission if they install externally.
I will start at the top. With utterly shameless corporate nerve, below their logo are the words “It’s everyone’s water”. No, it isn’t, it was before privatisation.
The letter is dated 1st September 2026 but only arrived yesterday (the 8th) and I am only being given fourteen days to book an appointment. I imagine this is the result of the same scaremongering tactic used by the Inland Revenue to make it seem that customers have been slow to respond.
Moving down, our address, to which they have been sending bills for some 26 years, now includes two egregious errors. The name of the village is omitted altogether which suggests that they are writing about an address in a town three miles away but includes “Reading” which is some thirty miles away and has never been part of our address. I have asked them in writing to reissue the letter correctly addressed to avoid confusion. They say they aim to get back to me within ten working days, although I am expected to comply with their demand within fourteen (they do not specify whether they mean working days or not).
Our region has been classified as “water-stressed”. Whose fault is that? Not the consumers’. This is why they say they “need to protect everyone’s supply by fitting meters.” Again, the irony is breath-taking.
They mention the Water Industry Act of 1991 which gives them Draconian powers but no one ever voted for that, no one was given the opportunity.
I have written reams about Thames Water and the other water companies, including an account of my attending a sewage protest this summer, but just to recap. Between 1989 and 2023 a sum of £10.4 billion was paid out in dividends. The grand total for all the water companies in England and Wales since privatisation is not completely clear but £80 billion is a reasonable estimate (according to analysts at the University of Greenwich it’s £85.2 billion). Also between 1989 and 2023 the company’s debts reached £14.7 billion and 28% of our bills, which increased by 40% in real terms, went towards servicing these debts.
A newly appointed finance executive has been given a £1 million ‘golden hello’ to circumvent the ban on performance-related bonuses – it cannot be performance related because it was given before he had done anything.
All the while, the infrastructure has been neglected. By their own admission, in 2024 Thames Water stated that they expected to leak 585 million litres of water per day over the year. Water-stressed indeed.
The sewage scandal is well-known and well-documented, the subject of much media attention and protest. As a child I would not have thought twice about paddling or swimming in rivers, streams or the sea. As recently as twenty years ago I would have been happy for my children to do the same. Now it would seem foolhardy and irresponsible for anyone to do so, let alone young children. That is a profoundly sad, terrible, terrible thing. So is the incalculable harm done to wildlife.
In the letter, they say that they are working to reduce water lost through leaks by 20% (is that all?) and “investing £200 million in replacing old water mains with new pipes.” Again, is that all?
Over the years since privatisation, from The Guardian, “Thames Water has a massive, well-documented track record of criminal convictions and record-breaking corporate fines handed down by Crown Courts for environmental offenses.” And from the government: “Over the years, the courts have slapped them with tens of millions of pounds in fines for illegal, large-scale discharges of untreated raw sewage into rivers, chalk streams, and public parks—often citing “high negligence” and management failures. They have also faced massive regulatory penalties from Ofwat for breaching operational and financial rules.”
On the right-hand side of the letter is a column headed “A smart meter can make life better in so many ways”. They can only manage three. Smarter bills (which may indeed be fairer in certain circumstances but that is not the point). “You’ll have 24/7 control”. Of what? “You could save water and money” (my italics). With astonishing corporate condescension, they inform me that “using less means paying less” and that “using less hot water can help reduce your energy bill too.” No shit, Sherlock.
As a family we have never wasted water. Unlike the water companies, we respect it as a precious natural resource.
The back of the letter is headed “Your questions answered”. I have another one. How do they sleep at night? Their answer to the third question has a word missing which suggests that no one has even bothered to proof-read the letter.
This and the address errors do not inspire confidence and so I have also asked them to let me know how regularly the meters are checked after installation to ensure accurate reporting. They were less than transparent about their sewage discharges for a long time. They do not have my trust.
Another question, “Are smart meters safe” is answered with “Absolutely … They use low-powered radio waves similar to a TV remote control…” I don’t want yet more waves of any kind any more than I want their meter in my home. I am not going to start wearing a tinfoil hat but there is a big difference between one of their meters and a TV remote. I choose to have a TV remote.
Since publishing this post a friend who knows about such things has kindly pointed out that TV remotes do not use radio waves. I thought it didn’t sound right. TV remotes use infrared. So they couldn’t even get that right.
“How secure is the data collected from my smart meter?” They answer “Very!” Somehow that exclamation mark makes me nervous. It seems they take readings hourly which seems de trop to say the least and highly intrusive. But we can rest assured that they “won’t share … data with any other organisations unless they’re working on our behalf”, which is no assurance at all since that could be absolutely anyone.
I will be copying all of the above to them in a follow-up e-mail shortly.
Given the title of this post, I cannot resist returning to the matter of the five wolves killed at Wildwood Discovery Park in Kent, see here and elsewhere: Hedgehogs, Wolves, Dogs, Foxes and Bruce Springsteen – Animal Wild
A reactive petition to ban the keeping of wolves in captivity has made some progress, but all too predictably there remains an abysmal lack of transparency.
An update from August 11th: “Over the past few months, we have pressed hard for total transparency from the Wildwood Trust, local representatives, and decision-makers. The response? Local MPs have hidden behind constituency boundary rules, and formal channels have left critical questions unanswered about the final days of the pack.
Even major advocates and public figures have gone quiet, leaving us to realize a harsh truth: no one is going to hand us accountability. We have to force it.”
Petition update · Bypassing the Wall: Why We Take the Fight Directly to Parliament · Change.org
I continue to mourn my ruined Lime Tree. Amazingly, it has already begun to show signs of regrowth, which many other species of tree would not. I also note from a specialist website that any pruning, such as might be necessary, should be done during the dormant phase which runs from December to February. But this butchery was carried out in August during the peak growth period.
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