NEW PM IS EXPECTED TO PUT THAMES WATER INTO ADMINISTRATION
The incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham is expected to push Thames Water into a special form of administration, an unprecedented intervention by the new prime minister into privately owned utilities, The Times and other other media outlets say today.
Britain’s biggest water company, which supplies 16 million customers from Gloucestershire to London, Kent and Essex, is facing being put into a special administration regime (SAR) that allows essential services to keep running until a buyer is found.
Thames Water is at the centre of the controversial Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA) scheme drought resilience and sewage extraction scheme in Teddington which will cost billions when, opponents claim other cheaper options are available.
Ian McNuff, leader of the SOLAR (Save Our Lands and River) told Teddington Town: “This is right choice to end decades of Thames Water leadership decisions that blatantly chose financial returns over customers and the environment.
“Those decisions and culture still live in the Teddington scheme which government must also stop in favour of the many better alternatives.”
Burnham pledged to take greater “public control” of the nation’s utilities with the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected” in his first set-piece speech as Labour leader on Friday.
The move suggests that his team does not believe a viable deal can be agreed between Thames Water and its creditors, which are owed £17 billion.
Thames Water has warned that it will run out of cash by the end of the year unless a deal can be agreed between its creditors, a 100-strong group of investors including American hedge funds, the water regulator and the government.
The creditors’ plan to take over Thames was cast into doubt in a row last month when the Defra secretary, Emma Reynolds, who is expected to lose her job under Burnham, said it could end up with “unfair” costs being heaped onto customers.
Andy Burnham officially takes over as Prime Minister tomorrow (Monday)