Maynard was granted permission to intervene in a court hearing this month over a £3bn debt deal to keep Thames Water afloat; his barrister argued in court that the company should be put into special administration, essentially temporary nationalisation, to end a “Thames Water debt doom loop”.
The water company, which serves 16 million customers in London and south-east England, will ask the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for permission to raise bills from 2025 to 2030 by more than the 35% that the water regulator for England and Wales, Ofwat, approved last year.
Thames Water is to appeal to the UK’s competition regulator to be allowed to raise customers’ bills over the next five years even higher than previously granted.
However, the Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard argued that Thames Water should not be allowed to raise bills further because a 35% increase over five years was “more than enough”.
The appeal will not affect bills for the financial year starting in April, and the company said that it would not delay spending on much-needed upgrades, with the company trying to reduce controversial discharges of sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas.
