The North West water supplier hit its more than seven million consumers with a steep rise in water bills
Water bills have risen for households across the northwest (Image: PA)
North West water company United Utilities has seen profits double since last year after hitting customers with a sharp increase in bills.
Over seven million people across the region use United Utilities, and are seeing their water bill rise by an average of 32 per cent over the next five years.
April 2025 saw the sharpest increase yet, with the average household seeing their water bill going up by £86.
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Consumers were left fronting the £13.7 billion cost of upgrades to the company’s network of pipes and sewers after accusations that United Utilities was illegally pumping raw sewage into Lake Windermere.
The increase in bills, which has come alongside rising costs in nearly every household expense, were intended to fund the infrastructure upgrades.
But now it has emerged that for the year ending March 31, United Utilities’ pre-tax profit had doubled to £355 million.
The company also confirmed on May 15 that it will increase the dividend pay out to shareholders by 4.2 percent to 34.6p
Chief executive Louise Beardmore has defended the company’s record, drawing attention to it cutting sewage spills per storm overflow by a quarter in 2024.
She said: “We have delivered another strong set of results for customers, communities and the environment in the North West.”
Her comments despite United Utilities recently being accused of failing to report that it had dumped over 100 million litres of untreated sewage into Lake Windermere over a period of three years.
Ms Beardmore told MPs in February that the company’s record on flooding and sewage spills “isn’t good enough.”
In 2024, Ms Beardmore took home £1.4 million. This included her base salary of £690,000, as well as benefits, bonuses, and long-term share awards.
Privately run water companies in the UK have been the focus of increasing public outcry over pollution and increases in bills alongside executive pay, bonuses, and high shareholder dividends despite the enormous infrastructural problems in the UK’s water network.
Trust in private water companies is at an all time low, with 53 per cent of households believing that the amount water companies charge is fair, down 2 percent from last year on the Consumer Council for Water’s (CCW) annual Water Matters study.
This year Labour MP Clive Lewis put forward a bill in parliament which proposed a “three strike” policy if a water company was found responsible for a spill.
The first would see shareholder pay outs suspended, with the second being a “last-chance saloon.”
Addressing a third strike, Mr Lewis told MPs in the Commons that “those price-gouging, asset-stripping, river-killing, vulture-capitalist outfits, they’ll be rolled into the sunset without a penny in compensation.”
Mr Lewis’ bill was blocked by Keir Starmer’s government, who said that it would cost too much to implement.